Alas, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a brood of evildoers, children who deal corruptly! They have forsaken the Lord, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel to anger, they are estranged and backward.
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven against men. For you neither enter yourselves, nor allow those who are entering to go in.
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! You devour widows’ houses and for pretense make long prayers. Therefore you will receive the greater condemnation.
His fame went throughout all Syria. And they brought to Him all sick people who were taken with various diseases and tormented with pain, those who were possessed with demons, those who had seizures, and those who had paralysis, and He healed them.
We also were once foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving various desires and pleasures, living in evil and envy, filled with hatred and hating each other.
For when they speak arrogant words of vanity, they entice by the lusts of the flesh and by depravity those who barely escaped from those who live in error.
You therefore, beloved, since you know these things beforehand, beware lest you also fall from your own firm footing, being led away by the deception of the wicked.
For there are some men who secretly crept in, who were marked long ago for this condemnation. They are ungodly men, who pervert the grace of our God into immorality and deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ.