So, dearly beloved, since you have been forewarned, you must always be on your guard against being led astray by the errors of lawless men, and so against falling away from your present firmness;

Spoil

Stop letting anyone, in gratuitous humility and worship of angels, defraud you as an umpire, for such a one is taking his stand on the mere visions he has seen, and is groundlessly conceited over his sensuous mind.

But I beg you, brothers, to keep on the lookout for those who stir up divisions and put hindrances in your way, in opposition to the instruction that you had, and always avoid them.

Stop letting anyone deceive you with groundless arguments about these things, for it is because of these very sins that God's anger comes down upon the disobedient.

You must stop being carried away with varied and strange teachings. For it is a good thing for the heart to be strengthened by God's spiritual strength, not by special kinds of food, from which those adhering to them have gotten no good.

Look out for yourselves, so as not to lose what we have worked for, but so as to get your full reward.

Philosophy

Some of the Epicurean and the Stoic philosophers began to debate with him; and some said, "What is this scraps-of-truth-picker trying to say?" Others said, "He seems to be a preacher of foreign deities." They said so because he was telling the good news of Jesus and the resurrection.

because, although they once knew God, they did not honor Him as God, or give Him thanks, but became silly in their senseless speculations, and so their insensible hearts have been shrouded in darkness.

For the Scripture says: "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and I will set aside the learning of the learned."

Let no one deceive himself. If any one of you supposes that he is wise in this world's wisdom, as compared with the rest of you, to become really wise he must become a fool.

But someone will ask, "How can the dead rise? With what kind of body do they come back?"

For I am demolishing arguments and every barrier that is raised against the genuine knowledge of God, taking captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ,

and their message will spread like a cancer; men like Hymenaeus and Philetus,

But bad men and imposters will go on from bad to worse, misleading others and misled themselves.

After the tradition

which refer to things that perish in the using, in accordance with human rules and teachings?

"Why do your disciples break the rules handed down by our forefathers? For they do not practice washing their hands when they take their meals."

For the Pharisees and all the Jews practice the customs handed down to them from their forefathers,

and how I outstripped many of my own age among my people in my devotion to the Jewish religion, because I surpassed all others in my zeal for the traditions handed down by my forefathers.

because you know that you have not been ransomed with things that perish as silver or gold, from the futile way of living taught by your fathers,

The rudiments

If once through fellowship with Christ you died and were separated from the world's crude notions, why do you live as though you belonged to the world? Why submit to rules such as,

So when we were spiritually under age, we were slaves to the world's crude notions,

in which you once lived in accordance with the spirit of this present world, and the mighty prince of the air, who is always at work in the disobedient, among whom all of us, we Jews as well as you heathen,

After christ

But this is not the way you have learned what Christ means,

General references

But they will never come on behind a stranger, but will run away from him, because they do not know the voice of strangers."