Be carefully on your guard lest there be any one who falls back from the grace of God; lest any root bearing bitter fruit spring up and cause trouble among you, and through it the whole brotherhood be defiled;

"Take care that no one misleads you," answered Jesus;

"You yourselves must be on your guard. They will deliver you up to Sanhedrins; you will be brought into synagogues and cruelly beaten; and you will stand before governors and kings for my sake, to be witnesses to them for me.

"See to it," He replied, "that you are not misled; for many will come assuming my name and professing, 'I am He,' or saying, 'The time is close at hand.' Do not go and follow them.

Do not be puffed up with pride. Tremble rather--for if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will He spare you.

So then let him who thinks he is standing securely beware of falling.

An

Therefore I was greatly grieved with that generation, and I said, 'They are ever going astray in heart, and have not learnt to know My paths.'

For from within, out of men's hearts, their evil purposes proceed--fornication, theft, murder, adultery,

In

But it is by faith that My righteous servant shall live; and if he shrinks back, My soul takes no pleasure in him."

Be careful not to refuse to listen to Him who is speaking to you. For if they of old did not escape unpunished when they refused to listen to him who spoke on earth, much less shall we escape who turn a deaf ear to Him who now speaks from Heaven.

The

For when others speak of us they report the reception we had from you, and how you turned from your idols to God, to be bondservants of the true and ever-living God,

General references

of sin, because they do not believe in me;