But his servants approached him and spoke to him, and said, “My father, if the prophet had told you to do something difficult, would you not have done it? How much more then, when he told you only to ‘Wash and be clean’?”
therefore thus says Adonai, “I will indeed punish Shemaiah the Nehelamite and his offspring. There will be none living among this people, and he will not see the good that I will do to My people,” declares Adonai, “because he has spoken rebellion against Adonai.”
Because you have discouraged the hearts of the righteous with your lies, when I have not grieved him; and strengthened the hands of the wicked so he may not return from his wicked way and live,
and said, “O you, full of all deceit and trickery, son of the devil, enemy of all righteousness—will you not stop making crooked the straight paths of the Lord?
And why not say, “Let us do evil, so that good may come” — just as we are being slandered and as some claim that we say. Their condemnation is deserved!
Are they servants of Messiah? I am more so—I speak like I’m out of my mind—in labors much more, in prisons much more, in beatings more brutal, near death often.
For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the worldly forces of this darkness, and against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.
For certain people have secretly slipped in—those who from long ago have been marked out for this judgment. They are ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into indecency and deny our only Master and Lord, Yeshua the Messiah.
And he deceives those who dwell on the earth through the signs he is permitted to perform, telling those who dwell on the earth to make an image in honor of the beast who has the sword wound yet lived.
Now the beast that I saw was like a leopard, his feet like a bear’s, and his mouth like a lion’s. And the dragon gave him his power and his throne and great authority.