You, therefore, dear friends, having been warned beforehand, must continually be on your guard so as not to be led astray by the false teaching of immoral men nor fall from your own stedfastness.
But I have spoken these things to you in order that when the time for their accomplishment comes you may remember them, and may recollect that I told you. I did not, however, tell you all this at first, because I was still with you.
and they were constant in listening to the teaching of the Apostles and in their attendance at the Communion, that is, the Breaking of the Bread, and at prayer.
For men of that stamp are not bondservants of Christ our Lord, but are slaves to their own appetites; and by their plausible words and their flattery they utterly deceive the minds of the simple.
Therefore, my dear brethren, be firm, unmovable, busily occupied at all times in the Lord's work, knowing that your toil is not fruitless in the Lord.
But I am afraid that, as the serpent in his craftiness deceived Eve, so your minds may be led astray from their single-heartedness and their fidelity to Christ.
So we shall no longer be babes nor shall we resemble mariners tossed on the waves and carried about with every changing wind of doctrine according to men's cleverness and unscrupulous cunning, making use of every shifting device to mislead.
For although, as you say, I am absent from you in body, yet in spirit I am present with you and am delighted to witness your good discipline and the solid front presented by your faith in Christ.
Take care lest there be some one who leads you away as prisoners by means of his philosophy and idle fancies, following human traditions and the world's crude notions instead of following Christ.
This letter which I am now writing to you, dear friends, is my second letter. In both my letters I seek to revive in your honest minds the memory of certain things,
Be mindful, therefore, of the height from which you have fallen. Repent at once, and act as you did at first, or else I will surely come and remove your lampstand out of its place–unless you repent.