Shun foolish and ignorant discussions, for you know that they only breed quarrels;

and they may yet come to a sober mind, and escape from the snares of the Devil, when captured by the Lord's Servant to do the will of God.

treacherous, reckless, and puffed up with pride; they will love pleasure more than they love God;

and while they retain the outward form of religion, they will not allow it to influence them. Turn your back on such men as these.

Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so do these people, in their turn, oppose the Truth. Their minds are corrupted, and, as regards the Faith, they are utterly worthless.

They will not, however, make further progress; for their wicked folly will be plain to every one, just as that of Jannes and Jambres was.

You, however, must stand by what you learnt and accepted as true. You know who they were from whom you learnt it;

For a time will come when people will not tolerate sound teaching. They will follow their own wishes, and, in their itching for novelty, procure themselves a crowd of teachers.

They will turn a deaf ear to the Truth, and give their attention to legends instead.

At my first trial no one stood by me. They all deserted me. May it never be counted against them!

They are to be men of irreproachable character, who are faithful husbands, whose children are Christians and have never been charged with dissolute conduct or have been unruly.

whose mouths ought to be stopped; for they upset whole households by teaching what they ought not to teach, merely to make questionable gains.

Therefore rebuke them sharply, so that they may be sound in the Faith,

They profess to know God, but by their actions they disown him. They are degraded and self-willed; and, as far as anything good is concerned, they are utterly worthless.

So, too, that the older women should be reverent in their demeanor, and that they should avoid scandal, and beware of becoming slaves to drink;

that they should teach what is right, so as to train the younger women to love their husbands and children,

Teach them not to contradict or to pilfer, but to show such praiseworthy fidelity in everything, as to recommend the teaching about God our Savior by all that they do.

to be forbearing, and under all circumstances to show a gentle spirit in dealing with others, whoever they may be.

But have nothing to do with foolish discussions, or with genealogies, or with controversy, or disputes about the Law. They are useless and futile.

Do your best to help Zenas, the Teacher of the Law, and Apollos, on their way, and see that they want for nothing.

They shall perish, but thou remainest; As a garment they shall all grow old;

As a mantle thou wilt fold them up, And as a garment they shall be changed, But thou art the same, and thy years shall know no end.'

Harden not your hearts, as when Israel provoked me on the day when they tried my patience in the desert,

Therefore I was sorely vexed with that generation, And I said-- "Their hearts are always straying; They have never learned my ways";

While in my wrath I swore-- "They shall never enter upon my Rest."'

Who were they who heard God speak and yet provoked him? Were not they all those who left Egypt under the leadership of Moses?

And who were they to whom God swore that they should not enter upon his rest, if not those who had proved faithless?

We see, then, that they failed to enter upon it because of their want of faith.

For we have had the Good News told us just as they had. But the Message which they heard did them no good, since they did not share the faith of those who were attentive to it.

Upon that Rest we who have believed are now entering. As God has said-- 'In my wrath I swore--"They shall never enter upon my Rest;"' Although God's work was finished at the creation of the world;

On the other hand, we read in that passage-- ' They shall never enter upon my Rest.'

if those, I say, fell away, it would be impossible to bring them again to repentance; they would be crucifying the Son of God over again for themselves, and exposing him to open contempt.

Those descendants of Levi, who are from time to time appointed to the priesthood, are directed to collect tithes from the people in accordance with the Law--that is from their own Brothers, although they also are descended from Abraham.

Not such a Covenant as I made with their ancestors on the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt. For they did not abide by their Covenant with me, And therefore I disregarded them," says the Lord.

"This is the Covenant that I will make with the People of Israel After those days," says the Lord. "I will impress my laws on their minds, and will inscribe them on their hearts; And I will be their God, and they shall be my People.

The Law, though able to foreshadow the Better System which was coming, never had its actual substance. Its priests, with those sacrifices which they offer continuously year after year, can never make those who come to worship perfect.

How much worse then, think you, will be the punishment deserved by those who have trampled underfoot the Son of God, who have treated the blood that rendered the Covenant valid--the very blood by which they were purified--as of no account, and who have outraged the Spirit of Love?

All these died sustained by faith. They did not obtain the promised blessings, but they saw them from a distance and welcomed the sight, and they acknowledged themselves to be only aliens and strangers on the earth.

Those who speak thus show plainly that they are seeking their fatherland.

If they had been thinking of the land that they had left, they could have found opportunities to return.

But no, they were longing for a better, a heavenly, land! And therefore God was not ashamed to be called their God; indeed he had already prepared them a city.

Faith caused the parents of Moses to hide the child for three months after his birth, for they saw that he was a beautiful child; and they would not respect the King's order.

Faith enabled the people to cross the Red Sea, as if it had been dry land, while the Egyptians, when they attempted to do so, were drowned.

By their faith they subdued kingdoms, ruled righteously, gained the fulfillment of God's promises, 'shut the mouths of lions,'

Women received back their dead raised to life. Some were tortured on the wheel, and refused release in order that they might rise to a better life.

They were stoned to death, they were tortured, they were swan asunder, they were put to the sword; they wandered about clothed in the skins of sheep or goats, destitute, persecuted, ill-used--

Yet, though they all won renown by their faith, they did not obtain the final fulfillment of God's promise;

since God had in view some better thing for us, that they, apart from us, should not attain perfection.

and the blast of a trumpet, and an audible voice.' Those who heard that voice entreated that they might hear no more,

for they could not bear to think of the command-- 'If even an animal touches the mountain, it is to be stoned to death;'

Beware how you refuse to hear him who is speaking. For, if the Israelites did not escape punishment, when they refused to listen to him who taught them on earth the divine will, far worse will it be for us, if we turn away from him who is teaching us from Heaven.

Obey your Leaders, and submit to their control, for they are watching over your souls, as men who will have to render an account, so that they may do it with joy, and not in sorrow. That would not be to your advantage.

But you--you insult the poor man! Is not it the rich who oppress you? Is not it they who drag you into law-courts?

Is not it they who malign that honorable Name which has been bestowed upon you?

Again, think of ships. Large as they are, and even when driven by fierce winds, they are controlled by a very small rudder and steered in whatever direction the man at the helm may determine.

as they strove to discern what that time could be, to which the Spirit of Christ within them was pointing, when foretelling the sufferings that would befall Christ, and the glories that would follow.

And it was revealed to them that it was not for themselves, but for you, that they were acting as Ministers of the truths which have now been told to you, by those who, with the help of the Holy Spirit sent from Heaven, have brought you the Good News--truths into which even angels long to look.

and 'a stumbling-block, and a rock which shall prove a hindrance.' They stumble because they do not accept the Message. This was the fate destined for them.

Dear friends, I urge you, as pilgrims and strangers upon earth, to refrain from indulging the cravings of your earthly nature, for they make war upon the soul.

Let your daily life among the Gentiles be so upright, that, whenever they malign you as evil-doers, they may learn, as they watch, from the uprightness of your conduct, to praise God 'at the time when he shall visit them.'

Again, you married women should submit to your husbands, so that if any of them reject the Message, they may, apart from the Message, be won over, by the conduct of their wives,

as they watch your submissive and blameless conduct.

Again, those of you who are married men should live considerately with their wives, showing due regard to their sex, as weaker than their own, and not forgetting that they share with you in the gift of Life. Then you will be able to pray without hindrance.

And, because you do not run to the same extremes of profligacy as others, they are astonished, and malign you.

But they will have to answer for their conduct to him who is ready to judge both the living and the dead.

For that was why the Good News was told to the dead also--that, after they have been judged in the body, as men are judged, they might live in the spirit, as God lives.

For, when these virtues are yours, in increasing measure, they prevent your being indifferent to, or destitute of, a fuller knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

In their covetousness they will try to make you a source of profit by their fabrications; but for a long time past their Sentence has not been standing idle, nor their Ruin slumbering.

Remember, God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them down to Tartarus, and committed them to caverns of darkness, to be kept under guard for judgment.

especially those who, following the promptings of their lower nature, indulge their polluting passions and despise all control. Audacious and self-willed, they feel no awe of the Mighty, maligning them,

These men, however, like animals without reason, intended by nature to be caught and killed--these men, I say, malign those of whom they know nothing, and will assuredly perish through their own corruption,

suffering themselves, as the penalty for the suffering that they have inflicted. They think that pleasure consists in the self-indulgence of the moment. They are a stain and a disgrace, indulging, as they do, in their wanton revelry, even while joining you at your feasts.

They have eyes only for adulteresses, eyes never tired of sin; they entice weak souls; their minds are trained to covet; they live under a curse.

Leaving the straight road, they have gone astray and followed in the steps of Balaam, the son of Beor, who set his heart on the reward for wrong-doing,

With boastful and foolish talk, they appeal to the passions of man's lower nature, and, by their profligacy, entice those who are just escaping from the men who live such misguided lives.

They promise them freedom, while they themselves are slaves to corrupt habits; for a man is the slave of anything to which he gives way.

For they wilfully shut their eyes to the fact that long ago the heavens existed; and the earth, also--formed out of water and by the action of water, by the fiat of God;

It is the same in all his letters, when he speaks in them about these subjects. There are some things in them difficult to understand, which untaught and weak people distort, just as they do all other writings, to their own Ruin.

From us, it is true, they went out, but they had never belonged to us; for, if they had belonged to us, they would have remained among us. They left us that it might be made clear that they do not, any of them, belong to us.

Those men belong to the world; and therefore they speak as the world speaks, and the world listens to them.

Dear friend, whatever you do for our Brothers is done in a Christian spirit--even when they are strangers to you.

They themselves have testified before the Church to your love; and you will do well to help them on their way in a manner worthy of the service of God.

For it was on behalf of the Name that they left their homes, and refused to take anything from the Gentiles.

Like Sodom and Gomorrah and the towns near them, which gave themselves up to fornication, and fell into unnatural vice, these angels now stand out as a warning, undergoing, as they are, the punishment of aeonian fire.

But these men malign whatever they do not understand; while they use such things as they know by instinct (like the animals that have no reason) for their own corruption.

Alas for them! They walk in the steps of Cain; led astray by Balaam's love of gain, they plunge into sin, and meet their ruin through rebellion like that of Korah.

These are the men who are blots upon your 'Love-feasts,' when they feast together and provide without scruple for themselves alone. They are clouds without rain, driven before the winds; they are leafless trees without a vestige of fruit, dead through and through, torn up by the roots;

They are wild sea waves, foaming with their own shame; they are 'wandering stars,' for which the blackest darkness has been reserved for ever.

to execute judgment upon all men, and to convict all godless people of all their godless acts, which in their ungodliness they have committed, and of all the harsh words which they have spoken against him, godless sinners that they are!'

These men are always murmuring, and complaining of their lot; they follow where their passions lead them; they have arrogant words upon their lips; and they flatter men for the sake of what they can get from them.

how they used to say to you-- 'As time draws to an end, there will be scoffers, who will be led by their godless passions.'

To some show pity, because they are in doubt. 'Drag them out of the fire,' and save them.

Blessed is he who reads, and blessed are they who listen to, the words of this prophecy, and lay to heart what is here written; for The Time is near.

I know your life, your toil and endurance, and I know that you cannot tolerate evil-doers. I know, too, how you tested those who declare that they are Apostles, though they are not, and how you proved them false.

I know your persecution and your poverty--yet you are rich! I know, too, the slander that come from those who declare that they are Jews, though they are not, but are a Congregation of Satan.

Yet I have a few things against you--You have among you those who hold to the Teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to put temptations in the way of the Israelites, so that they should eat idol-offerings and commit licentious acts.

Yet I have this against you--You tolerate the woman Jezebel, who declares that she is a Prophetess, and misleads my servants by her teaching, till they commit licentious acts and eat idol-offerings.

Therefore I am laying her upon a bed of sickness, and bringing great suffering upon those who are unfaithful with her, unless they repent and turn from a life like hers.

Yet there are some few among you at Sardis who did not soil their robes; they shall walk with me, robed in white, for they are worthy.

Listen, I give some of the Congregation of Satan, the men who declare that they are Jews, though they are not, but are lying----I will make them 'come and bow down at your feet,' and they shall learn that I loved you.