17. These people are like dried-up springs, like clouds blown along by a storm; God has reserved a place for them in the deepest darkness.
18. 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.
19. They promise them freedom while they themselves are slaves of destructive habits — for a person is a slave of anything that has conquered him.
20. If people have escaped from the corrupting forces of the world through their knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and then are again caught and conquered by them, such people are in a worse state at the end than they were at the beginning.
21. It would have been much better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than to know it and then turn away from the sacred command that was given them.
22. What happened to them shows that the proverbs are true: “A dog goes back to what it has vomited” and “A pig that has been washed goes back to roll in the mud.”