Deception and False Teaching

¹⁵Beware of false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. ¹⁶By their fruit you will recognize them. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? ¹⁷Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. ¹⁸A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. ¹⁹Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. ²⁰So then, by their fruit you will recognize them. ²¹Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of My Father in heaven. ²²Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ ²³Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you workers of lawlessness!’

⁴Jesus answered, “See to it that no one deceives you. ⁵For many will come in My name, claiming, ‘I am the Christ,’ and will deceive many. ²³At that time, if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Christ!’ or ‘There He is!’ do not believe it. ²⁴For false Christs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and wonders to deceive even the elect, if that were possible. ²⁵See, I have told you in advance. ²⁶So if they tell you, ‘There He is, in the wilderness,’ do not go out, or, ‘Here He is, in the inner rooms,’ do not believe it. ²⁷For just as the lightning comes from the east and flashes as far as the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.

²⁸Keep watch over yourselves and the entire flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God, which He purchased with His own blood. ²⁹I know that after my departure, savage wolves will come in among you and will not spare the flock. ³⁰Even from your own number, men will rise up and distort the truth to draw away disciples after them. ³¹Therefore be alert and remember that for three years I never stopped warning each of you night and day with tears.

⁶I am amazed how quickly you are deserting the One who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— ⁷which is not even a gospel. Evidently some people are troubling you and trying to distort the gospel of Christ. ⁸But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be under a curse! ⁹As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be under a curse!

³I am afraid, however, that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent’s cunning, your minds may be led astray from your simple and pure devotion to Christ. ⁴For if someone comes and proclaims a Jesus other than the One we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit than the One you received, or a different gospel than the one you accepted, you put up with it very easily. ¹³For such men are false apostles, deceitful workers, masquerading as apostles of Christ. ¹⁴And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. ¹⁵It is not surprising, then, if his servants masquerade as servants of righteousness. Their end will correspond to their actions.

⁶Therefore, just as you have received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to walk in Him, ⁷rooted and built up in Him, established in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness. ⁸See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, which are based on human tradition and the spiritual forces of the world rather than on Christ. ⁹For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity dwells in bodily form. ¹⁰And you have been made complete in Christ, who is the head over every ruler and authority.

¹Now the Spirit expressly states that in later times some will abandon the faith to follow deceitful spirits and the teachings of demons, ²influenced by the hypocrisy of liars, whose consciences are seared with a hot iron. ³They will prohibit marriage and require abstinence from certain foods that God has created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. ⁴For every creation of God is good, and nothing that is received with thanksgiving should be rejected, ⁵because it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer.

¹I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of His appearing and His kingdom: ²Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and encourage with every form of patient instruction. ³For the time will come when men will not tolerate sound doctrine, but with itching ears they will gather around themselves teachers to suit their own desires. ⁴So they will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. ⁵But you, be sober in all things, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.

¹Now there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them—bringing swift destruction on themselves. ²Many will follow in their depravity, and because of them the way of truth will be defamed. ³In their greed, these false teachers will exploit you with deceptive words. The longstanding verdict against them remains in force, and their destruction does not sleep.

¹⁸Children, it is the last hour; and just as you have heard that the antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have appeared. This is how we know it is the last hour. ¹⁹They went out from us, but they did not belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us. But their departure made it clear that none of them belonged to us. ²⁰You, however, have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know the truth. ²¹I have not written to you because you lack knowledge of the truth, but because you have it, and because no lie comes from the truth. ²²Who is the liar, if it is not the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, who denies the Father and the Son. ²³Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father, but whoever confesses the Son has the Father as well. ²⁴As for you, let what you have heard from the beginning remain in you. If it does, you will also remain in the Son and in the Father. ²⁵And this is the promise that He Himself made to us: eternal life. ²⁶I have written these things to you about those who are trying to deceive you. ²⁷And as for you, the anointing you received from Him remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you. But just as His true and genuine anointing teaches you about all things, so remain in Him as you have been taught.

¹Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God. For many false prophets have gone out into the world. ²By this you will know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, ³and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and which is already in the world at this time. ⁴You, little children, are from God and have overcome them, because greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world. ⁵They are of the world. That is why they speak from the world’s perspective, and the world listens to them. ⁶We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us; whoever is not from God does not listen to us. That is how we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of deception.

³Beloved, although I made every effort to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt it necessary to write and urge you to contend earnestly for the faith entrusted once for all to the saints. ⁴For certain men have crept in among you unnoticed—ungodly ones who were designated long ago for condemnation. They turn the grace of our God into a license for immorality, and they deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ. ¹⁷But you, beloved, remember what was foretold by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ ¹⁸when they said to you, “In the last times there will be scoffers who will follow after their own ungodly desires.” ¹⁹These are the ones who cause divisions, who are worldly and devoid of the Spirit. ²⁰But you, beloved, by building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, ²¹keep yourselves in the love of God as you await the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you eternal life. ²²And indeed, have mercy on those who doubt; ²³save others by snatching them from the fire; and to still others show mercy tempered with fear, hating even the clothing stained by the flesh.