Do you, therefore, beloved, since you know these things be forehand, beware, lest, being led away with the error of the wicked, you fall from your own steadfastness.

Spoil

Let no one gain his purpose in depriving you of the palm by an affected humility and worship of angels, prying into things which he has not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind,

Now I beseech you, brethren, to mark those who make divisions and cause offenses in opposition to the teaching which you have learned, and avoid them.

Let no one deceive you with vain words: for on account of these things, the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.

Be not carried away by various and strange teachings: for it is good that the heart be strengthened with grace, not with meats, which have not profited those who were occupied with them.

Look to yourselves, that we lose not the things that we have gained, but that we receive a full reward.

Philosophy

And some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers disputed with him; and some said: What can this babbler possibly wish to say? Others said: He seems to be a proclaimer of strange demons: for he preached to them Jesus and the Resurrection.

because, when they knew God, they did not glorify him as God, nor were they thankful; but they became perverse in their reasonings, and their wicked heart was darkened;

For it is written: I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; and I will set aside the understanding of the prudent.

Let no one deceive himself: if any one among you is considered as wise in this age, let him become a fool, that he may be wise.

But some one will say: How are the dead raised up? and with what body do they come?

overthrowing reasonings and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, and leading captive every thought to the obedience of the Christ,

and their word will eat as a gangrene: of whom are Hyrnenaeus and Philetus,

But evil men and impostors will become worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived.

After the tradition

(all of which are for the destruction of those who use them,) according to the commandments and teachings of men;

Why do your disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? for they do not wash their hands when they eat bread.

(for the Pharisees and all the Jews eat not, unless they wash their hands carefully, because they hold the tradition of the elders:

and I surpassed in Judaism many of my own age and nation, being more exceedingly zealous for the tradition of my fathers.

because you know that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver or gold, from your vain mode of life received by tradition from your fathers,

The rudiments

If, then, you have died with Christ from the elements of the world, why, as though living in the world, do you submit to ordinances?

So, also, we, when we were minors, were in bondage under the rudiments of the world.

in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is actively at work in the sons of disobedience:

After christ

But you have not so learned the Christ,

General references

And a stranger they will not follow, but will flee from him; for they know not the voice of strangers.