Backsliders: General Scriptures Concerning

If, however, you fail to obey Me and to carry out all these commandments, …

Only be on your guard and diligently watch yourselves, so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen, and so that they do not slip from your heart as long as you live. Teach them to your children and grandchildren.

Be careful not to forget the LORD your God by failing to keep His commandments and ordinances and statutes, which I am giving you this day. …

If, however, you do not obey the LORD your God by carefully following all His commandments and statutes I am giving you today, all these curses will come upon you and overtake you: …

Make sure there is no man or woman, clan or tribe among you today whose heart turns away from the LORD our God to go and worship the gods of those nations. Make sure there is no root among you that bears such poisonous and bitter fruit, …

But Jeshurun grew fat and kicked—becoming fat, bloated, and gorged. He abandoned the God who made him and scorned the Rock of his salvation. …

If you forsake the LORD and serve foreign gods, He will turn and bring disaster on you and consume you, even after He has been good to you.” …

But if indeed you or your sons turn away from following Me and do not keep the commandments and statutes I have set before you, and if you go off to serve and worship other gods, …

So he went out to meet Asa and said to him, “Listen to me, Asa and all Judah and Benjamin. The LORD is with you when you are with Him. If you seek Him, He will be found by you, but if you forsake Him, He will forsake you. …

For I was ashamed to ask the king for an escort of soldiers and horsemen to protect us from our enemies on the road, since we had told him, “The hand of our God is gracious to all who seek Him, but His great anger is against all who forsake Him.”

He strikes them for their wickedness in full view,

…because they turned aside from Him and had no regard for any of His ways.

If we had forgotten the name of our God or spread out our hands to a foreign god,

…would not God have discovered, since He knows the secrets of the heart?

Those far from You will surely perish; You destroy all who are unfaithful to You.

I will listen to what God the LORD will say; for He will surely speak peace to His people and His saints; He will not let them return to folly.

But those who turn to crooked ways the LORD will banish with the evildoers. Peace be upon Israel.

…who abandons the partner of her youth and forgets the covenant of her God.

The backslider in heart receives the fill of his own ways, but a good man is rewarded for his ways.

For though a righteous man may fall seven times, he still gets up; but the wicked stumble in bad times.

As a dog returns to its vomit, so a fool repeats his folly.

O LORD, the hope of Israel, all who abandon You will be put to shame. All who turn away will be written in the dust, for they have abandoned the LORD, the fountain of living water.

Now if a righteous man turns from his righteousness and commits iniquity, and I put a stumbling block before him, he will die. If you did not warn him, he will die in his sin, and the righteous acts he did will not be remembered. And I will hold you responsible for his blood.

But if a righteous man turns from his righteousness and practices iniquity, committing the same abominations as the wicked, will he live? None of the righteous acts he did will be remembered. Because of the unfaithfulness and sin he has committed, he will die.

If a righteous man turns from his righteousness and practices iniquity, he will die for this. He will die because of the iniquity he has committed.

Therefore this is what the Lord GOD says: ‘Because you have forgotten Me and have cast Me behind your back, you must bear the consequences of your indecency and prostitution.’”

Therefore, son of man, say to your people: ‘The righteousness of the righteous man will not deliver him in the day of his transgression; neither will the wickedness of the wicked man cause him to stumble on the day he turns from his wickedness. Nor will the righteous man be able to survive by his righteousness on the day he sins.’

If I tell the righteous man that he will surely live, but he then trusts in his righteousness and commits iniquity, then none of his righteous works will be remembered; he will die because of the iniquity he has committed.

If a righteous man turns from his righteousness and commits iniquity, he will die for it.

My people are bent on turning from Me. Though they call to the Most High, He will by no means exalt them.

How could I give you up, O Ephraim? How could I surrender you, O Israel? How could I make you like Admah? How could I treat you like Zeboiim? My heart is turned within Me; My compassion is stirred!

At this, I said, ‘I have been banished from Your sight; yet I will look once more toward Your holy temple.’

You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its savor, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men.

Then it goes and brings with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and dwell there. And the final plight of that man is worse than the first. So will it be with this wicked generation.”

Because of the multiplication of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold.

Then Jesus said to them, “This very night you will all fall away on account of Me. For it is written: ‘I will strike the Shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.’

Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the seedlings, and they yielded no crop.

Some are like the seeds along the path, where the word is sown. As soon as they hear it, Satan comes and takes away the word that was sown in them. …

If anyone is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will also be ashamed of him when He comes in His Father’s glory with the holy angels.”

Salt is good, but if the salt loses its saltiness, with what will you season it? Have salt among yourselves, and be at peace with one another.”

Then Jesus declared, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and then looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”

When a strong man, fully armed, guards his house, his possessions are secure. …

Remember Lot’s wife!

So Jesus asked the Twelve, “Do you want to leave too?”

If anyone does not remain in Me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers. Such branches are gathered up, thrown into the fire, and burned.

I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our forefathers were all under the cloud, and that they all passed through the sea. …

For I am afraid that when I come, I may not find you as I wish, and you may not find me as you wish. I fear that there may be quarreling, jealousy, rage, rivalry, slander, gossip, arrogance, and disorder.

I am afraid that when I come again, my God will humble me before you, and I will be grieved over many who have sinned earlier and have not repented of their acts of impurity, sexual immorality, and debauchery.

I am amazed how quickly you are deserting the One who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel—

…which is not even a gospel. Evidently some people are troubling you and trying to distort the gospel of Christ.

O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified.

But now that you know God, or rather are known by God, how is it that you are turning back to those weak and worthless principles? Do you wish to be enslaved by them all over again?

I fear for you, that my efforts for you may have been in vain.

You were running so well. Who has obstructed you from obeying the truth?

…holding on to faith and a good conscience, which some have rejected and thereby shipwrecked their faith.

For some have already turned aside to follow Satan.

For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. By craving it, some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many sorrows.

O Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to you. Avoid irreverent, empty chatter and the opposing arguments of so-called “knowledge,”

…which some have professed and thus swerved away from the faith. Grace be with you all.

So do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, or of me, His prisoner. Instead, join me in suffering for the gospel by the power of God.

…if we endure, we will also reign with Him; if we deny Him, He will also deny us;

…because Demas, in his love of this world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica. Crescens has gone to Galatia, and Titus to Dalmatia.

See to it, brothers, that none of you has a wicked heart of unbelief that turns away from the living God.

But exhort one another daily, as long as it is called today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.

Therefore, while the promise of entering His rest still stands, let us be careful that none of you be deemed to have fallen short of it.

Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will fall by following the same pattern of disobedience.

We have much to say about this, but it is hard to explain, because you are dull of hearing.

Although by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to reteach you the basic principles of God’s word. You need milk, not solid food!

It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, …

If we deliberately go on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no further sacrifice for sins remains, …

But My righteous one will live by faith; and if he shrinks back, I will take no pleasure in him.”

But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls.

Now those who say such things show that they are seeking a country of their own.

If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return.

See to it that no one falls short of the grace of God, and that no root of bitterness springs up to cause trouble and defile many.

But whoever lacks these traits is nearsighted to the point of blindness, having forgotten that he has been cleansed from his past sins.

If indeed they have escaped the corruption of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, only to be entangled and overcome by it again, their final condition is worse than it was at first.

It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness than to have known it and then to turn away from the holy commandment passed on to them.

Anyone who runs ahead without remaining in the teaching of Christ does not have God. Whoever remains in His teaching has both the Father and the Son.

But I have this against you: You have abandoned your first love.

Therefore, keep in mind how far you have fallen. Repent and perform the deeds you did at first. But if you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place.

Even though I have given her time to repent of her immorality, she is unwilling.

Wake up and strengthen what remains, which is about to die; for I have found your deeds incomplete in the sight of My God.

Remember, then, what you have received and heard. Keep it and repent. If you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know the hour when I will come upon you.

But to the cowardly and unbelieving and abominable and murderers and sexually immoral and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars, their place will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur. This is the second death.”