Matthew 18:7

¹He said to the disciples, “It is impossible that no occasions of stumbling should come, but woe to him through whom they come!

¹⁹For there also must be factions among you, that those who are approved may be revealed among you.

²⁴The Son of Man goes even as it is written of him, but woe to that man through whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would be better for that man if he had not been born.”

¹But the Spirit says expressly that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to seducing spirits and doctrines of demons, ²through the hypocrisy of men who speak lies, branded in their own conscience as with a hot iron, ³forbidding marriage and commanding to abstain from foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth.

⁴For there are certain men who crept in secretly, even those who were long ago written about for this condemnation: ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into indecency, and denying our only Master, God, and Lord, Jesus Christ.

¹¹Woe to them! For they went in the way of Cain, and ran riotously in the error of Balaam for hire, and perished in Korah’s rebellion. ¹²These are hidden rocky reefs in your love feasts when they feast with you, shepherds who without fear feed themselves; clouds without water, carried along by winds; autumn trees without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots; ¹³wild waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, for whom the blackness of darkness has been reserved forever.

¹But know this: that in the last days, grievous times will come. ²For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, ³without natural affection, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, fierce, not lovers of good, ⁴traitors, headstrong, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, ⁵holding a form of godliness but having denied its power. Turn away from these, also.

¹⁴But I have a few things against you, because you have there some who hold the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to throw a stumbling block before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols, and to commit sexual immorality. ¹⁵So also you likewise have some who hold to the teaching of the Nicolaitans.

¹⁵Forsaking the right way, they went astray, having followed the way of Balaam the son of Beor, who loved the wages of wrongdoing; ¹⁶but he was rebuked for his own disobedience. A speechless donkey spoke with a man’s voice and stopped the madness of the prophet.

¹⁷These are wells without water, clouds driven by a storm, for whom the blackness of darkness has been reserved forever.

³Let no one deceive you in any way. For it will not be unless the rebellion ^[+] comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of destruction. ⁴He opposes and exalts himself against all that is called God or that is worshiped, so that he sits as God in the temple of God, setting himself up as God. ⁵Don’t you remember that when I was still with you, I told you these things? ⁶Now you know what is restraining him, to the end that he may be revealed in his own season. ⁷For the mystery of lawlessness already works. Only there is one who restrains now, until he is taken out of the way. ⁸Then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will kill with the breath of his mouth and destroy by the manifestation of his coming; ⁹even he whose coming is according to the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, ¹⁰and with all deception of wickedness for those who are being lost, because they didn’t receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. ¹¹Because of this, God sends them a powerful delusion, that they should believe a lie, ¹²that they all might be judged who didn’t believe the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.