'Former' in the Bible

Regarding your former way of life, you were taught to strip off your old nature, which is being ruined by its deceptive desires,

The former proclaim the Messiah because they are selfishly ambitious and insincere, thinking that they will stir up trouble for me during my imprisonment.

God, having spoken in former times in fragmentary and varied fashion to our forefathers by the prophets,

Indeed, because it was weak and ineffective, the former commandment has been annulled,

For if, after escaping the world's corruptions through a full knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus, the Messiah, they are again entangled and conquered by those corruptions, then their last condition is worse than their former one.