I know your doings, your hard work and your patient endurance; I know that you cannot bear wicked men, and that you have tested those who style themselves apostles (no apostles they!) and detected them to be liars;
But the Beast was seized, together with the false Prophet who had performed in his presence the miracles by means of which he seduced those who received the mark of the Beast and worshipped his statue; both of them were flung alive into the lake of fire that blazes with brimstone,
Beware of anyone getting hold of you by means of a theosophy which is specious make-believe, on the lines of human tradition, corresponding to the Elemental spirits of the world and not to Christ.
instead of remaining immature, blown from our course and swayed by every passing wind of doctrine, by the adroitness of men who are dexterous in devising error;
Still I have this against you: you are tolerating that Jezebel of a woman who styles herself a prophetess and seduces my servants by teaching them to give way to sexual vice and to eat food which has been sacrificed to idols.
I know your distress and your poverty (but you are rich!): I know how you are being slandered by those who style themselves Jews (no Jews are they, but a mere synagogue of Satan!).
for certain persons have slipped in by stealth (their doom has been predicted long ago), impious creatures who pervert the grace of our God into immorality and disown our sole liege and Lord, Jesus Christ.
Children, it is the last hour. You have learned that 'Antichrist is coming.' Well, but many antichrists have appeared — which makes us sure it is the last hour.
These men who are keen upon you getting circumcised are just men who want to make a grand display in the flesh — it is simply to avoid being persecuted for the cross of Christ.
I disown those practices which very shame conceals from view; I do not go about it craftily; I do not falsify the word of God; I state the truth openly and so commend myself to every man's conscience before God.
I am, for I am not like most, adulterating the word of God; like a man of sincerity, like a man of God, I speak the word in Christ before the very presence of God.
Such creatures are no servants of Christ our Lord, they are slaves of their own base desires; with their plausible and pious talk they beguile the hearts of unsuspecting people. But surely not of you!
But certain individuals came down from Jerusalem and taught the brothers that "unless you get circumcised after the custom of Moses you cannot be saved."
Then the servant who had got the two hundred and fifty pounds came forward. He said, 'I knew you were a hard man, sir, reaping where you never sowed and gathering where you never winnowed.