As we have been informed that certain persons who have gone out from among us have disturbed you by their teaching and have unsettled your minds, without having received any such instructions from us;
But certain persons who had come down from Judaea tried to convince the brethren, saying, »Unless you are circumcised in accordance with the Mosaic custom, you cannot be saved.«
For my part I have strong confidence in you in the Lord that you will adopt my view of the matter. But the man –be he who he may– who is troubling you, will have to bear the full weight of the judgement to be pronounced on him.
Bring all this to men's remembrances, solemnly charging them in the presence of God not to waste time in wrangling about mere words, a course which is altogether unprofitable and tends only to the ruin of the hearers.
They have gone forth from our midst, but they did not really belong to us; for had they belonged to us, they would have remained with us. But they left us that it might be manifest that professed believers do not all belong to us.