They complain about me. They say, "Who does that man think he's teaching? Who needs his message? It's only good for babies that have just stopped nursing!

and said, "I assure you that unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the Kingdom of heaven.

The greatest in the Kingdom of heaven is the one who humbles himself and becomes like this child.

As a matter of fact, my friends, I could not talk to you as I talk to people who have the Spirit; I had to talk to you as though you belonged to this world, as children in the Christian faith.

I had to feed you milk, not solid food, because you were not ready for it. And even now you are not ready for it,

Do not be like children in your thinking, my friends; be children so far as evil is concerned, but be grown up in your thinking.

There has been enough time for you to be teachers---yet you still need someone to teach you the first lessons of God's message. Instead of eating solid food, you still have to drink milk.

Solid food, on the other hand, is for adults, who through practice are able to distinguish between good and evil.

The time will come when some men from your own group will tell lies to lead the believers away after them.

Watch, then, and remember that with many tears, day and night, I taught every one of you for three years.

I urge you, my friends: watch out for those who cause divisions and upset people's faith and go against the teaching which you have received. Keep away from them!

For those who do such things are not serving Christ our Lord, but their own appetites. By their fine words and flattering speech they deceive innocent people.

I am afraid that your minds will be corrupted and that you will abandon your full and pure devotion to Christ---in the same way that Eve was deceived by the snake's clever lies.

For you gladly tolerate anyone who comes to you and preaches a different Jesus, not the one we preached; and you accept a spirit and a gospel completely different from the Spirit and the gospel you received from us!

I am surprised at you! In no time at all you are deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ, and are accepting another gospel.

Actually, there is no "other gospel," but I say this because there are some people who are upsetting you and trying to change the gospel of Christ.

You foolish Galatians! Who put a spell on you? Before your very eyes you had a clear description of the death of Jesus Christ on the cross!

I tell you, then, do not let anyone deceive you with false arguments, no matter how good they seem to be.

Since you have accepted Christ Jesus as Lord, live in union with him.

See to it, then, that no one enslaves you by means of the worthless deceit of human wisdom, which comes from the teachings handed down by human beings and from the ruling spirits of the universe, and not from Christ.

not to be so easily confused in your thinking or upset by the claim that the Day of the Lord has come. Perhaps it is thought that we said this while prophesying or preaching, or that we wrote it in a letter.

He will oppose every so-called god or object of worship and will put himself above them all. He will even go in and sit down in God's Temple and claim to be God.

He must be mature in the faith, so that he will not swell up with pride and be condemned, as the Devil was.

If you give these instructions to the believers, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, as you feed yourself spiritually on the words of faith and of the true teaching which you have followed.

But keep away from those godless legends, which are not worth telling. Keep yourself in training for a godly life.

You know that everyone in the province of Asia, including Phygelus and Hermogenes, has deserted me.

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 time will come when people will not listen to sound doctrine, but will follow their own desires and will collect for themselves more and more teachers who will tell them what they are itching to hear.

Do not let all kinds of strange teachings lead you from the right way. It is good to receive inner strength from God's grace, and not by obeying rules about foods; those who obey these rules have not been helped by them.

False prophets appeared in the past among the people, and in the same way false teachers will appear among you. They will bring in destructive, untrue doctrines, and will deny the Master who redeemed them, and so they will bring upon themselves sudden destruction.

In their greed these false teachers will make a profit out of telling you made-up stories. For a long time now their Judge has been ready, and their Destroyer has been wide awake!

These people really did not belong to our fellowship, and that is why they left us; if they had belonged to our fellowship, they would have stayed with us. But they left so that it might be clear that none of them really belonged to us.

I am writing this to you about those who are trying to deceive you.

My dear friends, do not believe all who claim to have the Spirit, but test them to find out if the spirit they have comes from God. For many false prophets have gone out everywhere.

While John's disciples were leaving, Jesus spoke about him to the crowds: "When you went out to John in the desert, what did you expect to see? A blade of grass bending in the wind?

You know that while you were still heathen, you were led astray in many ways to the worship of lifeless idols.

But when you pray, you must believe and not doubt at all. Whoever doubts is like a wave in the sea that is driven and blown about by the wind.

Or think of a ship: big as it is and driven by such strong winds, it can be steered by a very small rudder, and it goes wherever the pilot wants it to go.

Then many false prophets will appear and fool many people.

For false Messiahs and false prophets will appear; they will perform great miracles and wonders in order to deceive even God's chosen people, if possible.

We are not like so many others, who handle God's message as if it were cheap merchandise; but because God has sent us, we speak with sincerity in his presence, as servants of Christ.

We put aside all secret and shameful deeds; we do not act with deceit, nor do we falsify the word of God. In the full light of truth we live in God's sight and try to commend ourselves to everyone's good conscience.

Those men are not true apostles---they are false apostles, who lie about their work and disguise themselves to look like real apostles of Christ.

So it is no great thing if his servants disguise themselves to look like servants of righteousness. In the end they will get exactly what their actions deserve.

The Wicked One will come with the power of Satan and perform all kinds of false miracles and wonders,

and use every kind of wicked deceit on those who will perish. They will perish because they did not welcome and love the truth so as to be saved.

They make proud and stupid statements, and use immoral bodily lusts to trap those who are just beginning to escape from among people who live in error.

Then I saw another beast, which came up out of the earth. It had two horns like a lamb's horns, and it spoke like a dragon.

This second beast performed great miracles; it made fire come down out of heaven to earth in the sight of everyone.

The beast was taken prisoner, together with the false prophet who had performed miracles in his presence. (It was by those miracles that he had deceived those who had the mark of the beast and those who had worshiped the image of the beast.) The beast and the false prophet were both thrown alive into the lake of fire that burns with sulfur.

they wait in their hiding place like lions. They lie in wait for the poor; they catch them in their traps and drag them away.

Look! They are waiting to kill me; cruel people are gathering against me. It is not because of any sin or wrong I have done,

There is not an honest person left in the land, no one loyal to God. Everyone is waiting for a chance to commit murder. Everyone hunts down their own people.

But don't listen to them, because there are more than forty men who will be hiding and waiting for him. They have taken a vow not to eat or drink until they have killed him. They are now ready to do it and are waiting for your decision."