“You’re a child of the devil! You’re an enemy of everything that’s right! You deceive people by using all kinds of tricks. Won’t you ever stop twisting the right ways of the Lord?
You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s wishes. From the beginning, the devil has been a murderer. He has never obeyed the truth because there’s no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, because he is a liar and the father of lies.
But just as Eve’s mind was tricked by the snake’s clever lies, I’m afraid that your minds will also be led astray somehow from your true and pure love for Christ.
The person who does what is sinful belongs to the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. But the Son of God came to destroy the devil’s work.
“Woe to you experts in the law! You have taken away the key to the door of knowledge. You have not entered yourselves, but you have stood in the way of those who wanted to enter.”
“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees! You hypocrites! You shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. You don’t enter yourselves, but you won’t let in other people who are trying to enter.
But when he saw many Pharisees and Sadducees coming to be baptized, John said to them, “You little snakes! Who warned you to try to escape the punishment that’s coming?
Then we won’t be babies in the faith anymore. We won’t be like ships tossed around by the waves and blown here and there by every new teaching. We won’t be fooled by the tricks that people use to hide their real plans.