"Prophets or interpreters of dreams may promise a miracle or a wonder,

do not pay any attention to them. The LORD your God is using them to test you, to see if you love the LORD with all your heart.

But put to death any interpreters of dreams or prophets that tell you to rebel against the LORD, who rescued you from Egypt, where you were slaves. Such people are evil and are trying to lead you away from the life that the LORD has commanded you to live. They must be put to death, in order to rid yourselves of this evil.

But they were opposed by the magician Elymas (that is his name in Greek), who tried to turn the governor away from the faith.

Such teaching is like an open sore that eats away the flesh. Two men who have taught such things are Hymenaeus and Philetus.

They have left the way of truth and are upsetting the faith of some believers by saying that our resurrection has already taken place.

Some of them go into people's houses and gain control over weak women who are burdened by the guilt of their sins and driven by all kinds of desires,

As Jannes and Jambres were opposed to Moses, so also these people are opposed to the truth---people whose minds do not function and who are failures in the faith.

The people of Israel forgot the LORD their God; they sinned against him and worshiped the idols of Baal and Asherah.

After Gideon's death the people of Israel were unfaithful to God again and worshiped the Baals. They made Baal-of-the-Covenant their god,

and no longer served the LORD their God, who had saved them from all their enemies around them.

Once again the Israelites sinned against the LORD by worshiping the Baals and the Astartes, as well as the gods of Syria, of Sidon, of Moab, of Ammon, and of Philistia. They abandoned the LORD and stopped worshiping him.

He rebuilt the pagan places of worship that his father Hezekiah had destroyed; he built altars for the worship of Baal and made an image of the goddess Asherah, as King Ahab of Israel had done. Manasseh also worshiped the stars.