Take heed to yourself, lest you make a covenant or mutual agreement with the inhabitants of the land to which you go, lest it become a snare in the midst of you.
Then there came forth a spirit [of whom I am about to tell] and stood before the Lord and said, I will entice him.
The Lord said to him, By what means? And he said, I will go forth and be a lying spirit in the mouths of all his prophets. [The Lord] said, You shall entice him and succeed also. Go forth and do it.
So the Lord has put a lying spirit in the mouths of all these prophets; and the Lord has spoken evil concerning you.
Thus says the Lord: Do not deceive yourselves, saying, The Chaldeans will surely stay away from us–for they will not stay away.
Thus says the Lord: For three transgressions of Judah and for four [for multiplied delinquencies], I will not reverse the punishment of it or revoke My word concerning it, because they have despised and rejected the law of the Lord and have not kept His commandments, but their lies, after which their fathers have walked, caused them to err and go astray.
Thus says the Lord God: Woe to the foolish prophets who follow their own spirit [and things they have not seen] and have seen nothing!
They have seen falsehood and lying divination, saying, The Lord says; but the Lord has not sent them. Yet they have hoped and made men to hope for the confirmation of their word.
Because, even because they have seduced My people, saying, Peace, when there is no peace, and because when one builds a [flimsy] wall, behold, [these prophets] daub it over with whitewash,
And God made the two great lights–the greater light (the sun) to rule the day and the lesser light (the moon) to rule the night. He also made the stars.
But Jesus replied to them, You are wrong because you know neither the Scriptures nor God's power.
And many false prophets will rise up and deceive and lead many into error.
For false Christs and false prophets will arise, and they will show great signs and wonders so as to deceive and lead astray, if possible, even the elect (God's chosen ones).
Let no person deceive himself. If anyone among you supposes that he is wise in this age, let him become a fool [let him discard his worldly discernment and recognize himself as dull, stupid, and foolish, without true learning and scholarship], that he may become [really] wise. [Isa. 5:21.]
For this world's wisdom is foolishness (absurdity and stupidity) with God, for it is written, He lays hold of the wise in their [own] craftiness; [Job 5:13.]
For if any person thinks himself to be somebody [too important to condescend to shoulder another's load] when he is nobody [of superiority except in his own estimation], he deceives and deludes and cheats himself.
The coming [of the lawless one, the antichrist] is through the activity and working of Satan and will be attended by great power and with all sorts of [pretended] miracles and signs and delusive marvels–[all of them] lying wonders–
And by unlimited seduction to evil and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing (going to perdition) because they did not welcome the Truth but refused to love it that they might be saved.
Therefore God sends upon them a misleading influence, a working of error and a strong delusion to make them believe what is false,
And as for you, brethren, do not become weary or lose heart in doing right [but continue in well-doing without weakening].
But instead warn (admonish, urge, and encourage) one another every day, as long as it is called Today, that none of you may be hardened [into settled rebellion] by the deceitfulness of sin [by the fraudulence, the stratagem, the trickery which the delusive glamor of his sin may play on him].
But be doers of the Word [obey the message], and not merely listeners to it, betraying yourselves [into deception by reasoning contrary to the Truth].
If we say we have no sin [refusing to admit that we are sinners], we delude and lead ourselves astray, and the Truth [which the Gospel presents] is not in us [does not dwell in our hearts].
We are [children] of God. Whoever is learning to know God [progressively to perceive, recognize, and understand God by observation and experience, and to get an ever-clearer knowledge of Him] listens to us; and he who is not of God does not listen or pay attention to us. By this we know (recognize) the Spirit of Truth and the spirit of error.