¹⁵ Timothy, do everything you can to present yourself to God as a man who is fully genuine, a worker unashamed of your mission, a guide capable of leading others along the correct path defined by the word of truth. ¹⁶ Stay away from ungodly babbling because it will only lead deeper into a godless lifestyle. ¹⁷ Once these empty voices start to speak, Timothy, they infect and spread; and soon the body is consumed with its cancer.^[a] Hymenaeus and Philetus fell victim to it,