make certain that you do not forget the LORD who rescued you from Egypt, where you were slaves.

"Be on your guard against false prophets; they come to you looking like sheep on the outside, but on the inside they are really like wild wolves.

Watch out, for there will be those who will arrest you and take you to court, and they will whip you in the synagogues.

Jesus said to them, "Take care; be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees."

Watch out for those who do evil things, those dogs, those who insist on cutting the body.

But you, my friends, already know this. Be on your guard, then, so that you will not be led away by the errors of lawless people and fall from your safe position.

Do not allow yourselves to be condemned by anyone who claims to be superior because of special visions and who insists on false humility and the worship of angels. For no reason at all, such people are all puffed up by their human way of thinking

Catch the foxes, the little foxes, before they ruin our vineyard in bloom.

I, the LORD, the God of Israel, warn you not to let yourselves be deceived by the prophets who live among you or by any others who claim they can predict the future. Do not pay any attention to their dreams.

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!

Do not let anyone deceive you with foolish words; it is because of these very things that God's anger will come upon those who do not obey him.

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.

Be on your guard, then, so that you will not lose what we have worked for, but will receive your reward in full.

Certain Epicurean and Stoic teachers also debated with him. Some of them asked, "What is this ignorant show-off trying to say?" Others answered, "He seems to be talking about foreign gods." They said this because Paul was preaching about Jesus and the resurrection.

When they heard Paul speak about a raising from death, some of them made fun of him, but others said, "We want to hear you speak about this again."

They know God, but they do not give him the honor that belongs to him, nor do they thank him. Instead, their thoughts have become complete nonsense, and their empty minds are filled with darkness.

They say they are wise, but they are fools;

The scripture says, "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and set aside the understanding of the scholars."

For God in his wisdom made it impossible for people to know him by means of their own wisdom. Instead, by means of the so-called "foolish" message we preach, God decided to save those who believe.

As for us, we proclaim the crucified Christ, a message that is offensive to the Jews and nonsense to the Gentiles;

You should not fool yourself. If any of you think that you are wise by this world's standards, you should become a fool, in order to be really wise.

For what this world considers to be wisdom is nonsense in God's sight. As the scripture says, "God traps the wise in their cleverness";

Someone will ask, "How can the dead be raised to life? What kind of body will they have?"

You fool! When you plant a seed in the ground, it does not sprout to life unless it dies.

we pull down every proud obstacle that is raised against the knowledge of God; we take every thought captive and make it obey Christ.

Timothy, keep safe what has been entrusted to your care. Avoid the profane talk and foolish arguments of what some people wrongly call "Knowledge."

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.

and evil persons and impostors will keep on going from bad to worse, deceiving others and being deceived themselves.

All these refer to things which become useless once they are used; they are only human rules and teachings.

"Why is it that your disciples disobey the teaching handed down by our ancestors? They don't wash their hands in the proper way before they eat!"

For God said, 'Respect your father and your mother,' and 'If you curse your father or your mother, you are to be put to death.'

they do not need to honor their father. In this way you disregard God's command, in order to follow your own teaching.

'These people, says God, honor me with their words, but their heart is really far away from me.

(For the Pharisees, as well as the rest of the Jews, follow the teaching they received from their ancestors: they do not eat unless they wash their hands in the proper way;

So the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law asked Jesus, "Why is it that your disciples do not follow the teaching handed down by our ancestors, but instead eat with ritually unclean hands?"

It is no use for them to worship me, because they teach human rules as though they were my laws!'

And Jesus continued, "You have a clever way of rejecting God's law in order to uphold your own teaching.

But you teach that if people have something they could use to help their father or mother, but say, 'This is Corban' (which means, it belongs to God),

In this way the teaching you pass on to others cancels out the word of God. And there are many other things like this that you do."

I was ahead of most other Jews of my age in my practice of the Jewish religion, and was much more devoted to the traditions of our ancestors.

For you know what was paid to set you free from the worthless manner of life handed down by your ancestors. It was not something that can be destroyed, such as silver or gold;

You have died with Christ and are set free from the ruling spirits of the universe. Why, then, do you live as though you belonged to this world? Why do you obey such rules as

In the same way, we too were slaves of the ruling spirits of the universe before we reached spiritual maturity.

But now that you know God---or, I should say, now that God knows you---how is it that you want to turn back to those weak and pitiful ruling spirits? Why do you want to become their slaves all over again?

At that time you followed the world's evil way; you obeyed the ruler of the spiritual powers in space, the spirit who now controls the people who disobey God.

That was not what you learned about Christ!