2 Peter 3:17. Ye therefore, beloved, knowing these things before, beware lest, carried away with the error of the lawless, ye fall from your own stedfastness. The epithet ‘lawless' (not merely ‘wicked,' as both the A. V. and R. V. put it) is that which was formerly applied to the men of Sodom in chap. 2 Peter 2:7. It points, therefore, to the licentious character of the errorists. The phrase ‘carried away with' is an extremely forcible one. It is the phrase which Paul applies to the action of Barnabas when he dissembled with Peter himself at Antioch (Galatians 2:13). It may suggest the picture of the ‘error' as a powerful current sweeping what it can into its bosom, and snatching the unwary off with it from the rock of their stedfastness. In Romans 12:16, which is its only other occurrence, it has a different sense. This particular term ‘stedfastness' occurs only here, out belongs to the same class with the previous ‘unstable' (2 Peter 3:16), and the adjective used in 1 Peter 5:10; 2 Peter 1:12. With ‘fall from' compare Galatians 5:4.

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Old Testament