Will men be silent only for you? And when you have mocked others, will no one refute you?
He who is mocked by his friends as I am, will call upon God, and he will listen to him because it is the sincerity of the just that is being mocked.
having first shown that you fabricate lies and cultivate perverse teachings.
Or, will it please him, from whom nothing can be concealed? Or, will he be deceived, like a man, by your deceitfulness?
I have not sinned, yet my eye remains in bitterness.
Permit me, and I will speak, and afterwards, if you see fit, you can laugh at my words.
But, if this is not so, who is able to prove to me that I have lied and to place my words before God?
What man is there that is like Job, who drinks up derision as if it were water,
I did not sit in the company of mockers, nor did I glorify myself before the presence of your hand. I sat alone, because you filled me with threats.
But if anyone does not obey our word by this epistle, take note of him and do not keep company with him, so that he may be ashamed.
with sound words, irreproachably, so that he who is an opponent may dread that he has nothing evil to say about us.
who declared to you that, in the end time, there would arrive mockers, walking according to their own desires, in impieties.