Philippians 3:2

NET Bible® (New English Translation)

Beware of the dogs, beware of the evil workers, beware of those who mutilate the flesh!

📖 Grammatical Analysis

Original Text

Βλέπετε τοὺς κύνας, βλέπετε τοὺς κακοὺς ἐργάτας, βλέπετε τὴν κατατομήν.

Transliteration

Blepete the kynas, blepete the kakous ergatas, blepete the katatomēn.

Grammar Details

• *blepete*: imperative, present, active, 2nd person plural - look at/beware of
• *kynas*: accusative, masculine, plural - dogs
• *kakous*: accusative, masculine, plural, adjective - evil/bad
• *ergatas*: accusative, masculine, plural - workers
• *katatomēn*: accusative, feminine, singular - mutilation/cutting

Word Meanings

• *blepete*: look at/watch out for/beware of
• *kynas*: dogs [derogatory term]
• *kakous*: evil/bad/wicked
• *ergatas*: workers/laborers
• *katatomēn*: mutilation/cutting [wordplay contrasting with *peritomē* (circumcision)]

Referenced Verses

• 2 Cor 11:13 : 13 For such people are false apostles, deceitful workers, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ.
• Gal 5:15 : 15 However, if you continually bite and devour one another, beware that you are not consumed by one another.
• Ps 22:16 : 16 Yes, wild dogs surround me– a gang of evil men crowd around me; like a lion they pin my hands and feet.
• Ps 22:20 : 20 Deliver me from the sword! Save my life from the claws of the wild dogs!
• Isa 56:10-11 : 10 All their watchmen are blind, they are unaware. All of them are like mute dogs, unable to bark. They pant, lie down, and love to snooze. 11 The dogs have big appetites; they are never full. They are shepherds who have no understanding; they all go their own way, each one looking for monetary gain.
• 2 Tim 3:1-6 : 1 Ministry in the Last Days But understand this, that in the last days difficult times will come. 2 For people will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 unloving, irreconcilable, slanderers, without self-control, savage, opposed to what is good, 4 treacherous, reckless, conceited, loving pleasure rather than loving God. 5 They will maintain the outward appearance of religion but will have repudiated its power. So avoid people like these. 6 For some of these insinuate themselves into households and captivate weak women who are overwhelmed with sins and led along by various passions.
• Titus 1:16 : 16 They profess to know God but with their deeds they deny him, since they are detestable, disobedient, and unfit for any good deed.
• Rev 22:15 : 15 Outside are the dogs and the sorcerers and the sexually immoral, and the murderers, and the idolaters and everyone who loves and practices falsehood!
• Rom 2:28 : 28 For a person is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision something that is outward in the flesh,
• Rev 21:8 : 8 But as for the cowards, unbelievers, detestable persons, murderers, the sexually immoral, and those who practice magic spells, idol worshipers, and all those who lie, their place will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur. That is the second death.”
• 2 Pet 2:18-20 : 18 For by speaking high-sounding but empty words they are able to entice, with fleshly desires and with debauchery, people who have just escaped from those who reside in error. 19 Although these false teachers promise such people freedom, they themselves are enslaved to immorality. For whatever a person succumbs to, to that he is enslaved. 20 For if after they have escaped the filthy things of the world through the rich knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they again get entangled in them and succumb to them, their last state has become worse for them than their first.
• 2 Tim 4:3-4 : 3 For there will be a time when people will not tolerate sound teaching. Instead, following their own desires, they will accumulate teachers for themselves, because they have an insatiable curiosity to hear new things. 4 And they will turn away from hearing the truth, but on the other hand they will turn aside to myths.
• 2 Tim 4:14-15 : 14 Alexander the coppersmith did me a great deal of harm. The Lord will repay him in keeping with his deeds. 15 You be on guard against him too, because he vehemently opposed our words.
• Jude 1:4 : 4 For certain men have secretly slipped in among you– men who long ago were marked out for the condemnation I am about to describe– ungodly men who have turned the grace of our God into a license for evil and who deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.
• Jude 1:10-13 : 10 But these men do not understand the things they slander, and they are being destroyed by the very things that, like irrational animals, they instinctively comprehend. 11 Woe to them! For they have traveled down Cain’s path, and because of greed have abandoned themselves to Balaam’s error; hence, they will certainly perish in Korah’s rebellion. 12 These men are dangerous reefs at your love feasts, feasting without reverence, feeding only themselves. They are waterless clouds, carried along by the winds; autumn trees without fruit– twice dead, uprooted; 13 wild sea waves, spewing out the foam of their shame; wayward stars for whom the utter depths of eternal darkness have been reserved.
• Matt 7:6 : 6 Do not give what is holy to dogs or throw your pearls before pigs; otherwise they will trample them under their feet and turn around and tear you to pieces.
• Matt 7:15 : 15 A Tree and Its Fruit“Watch out for false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are voracious wolves.
• Matt 7:22-23 : 22 On that day, many will say to me,‘Lord, Lord, didn’t we prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many powerful deeds in your name?’ 23 Then I will declare to them,‘I never knew you. Go away from me, you lawbreakers!’
• Phil 3:3 : 3 For we are the circumcision, the ones who worship by the Spirit of God, exult in Christ Jesus, and do not rely on human credentials
• Phil 3:19 : 19 Their end is destruction, their god is the belly, they exult in their shame, and they think about earthly things.
• 1 Tim 1:19 : 19 To do this you must hold firmly to faith and a good conscience, which some have rejected and so have suffered shipwreck in regard to the faith.
• Gal 2:3-4 : 3 Yet not even Titus, who was with me, was compelled to be circumcised, although he was a Greek. 4 Now this matter arose because of the false brothers with false pretenses who slipped in unnoticed to spy on our freedom that we have in Christ Jesus, to make us slaves.
• Gal 5:1-3 : 1 Freedom of the Believer For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not be subject again to the yoke of slavery. 2 Listen! I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no benefit to you at all! 3 And I testify again to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obligated to obey the whole law.
• Gal 5:6 : 6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision carries any weight– the only thing that matters is faith working through love.
• Gal 5:13 : 13 Practice Love For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity to indulge your flesh, but through love serve one another.
• Matt 24:10 : 10 Then many will be led into sin, and they will betray one another and hate one another.
• Ps 119:115 : 115 Turn away from me, you evil men, so that I can observe the commands of my God.
• Prov 26:11 : 11 Like a dog that returns to its vomit, so a fool repeats his folly.
• Rev 2:9 : 9 ‘I know the distress you are suffering and your poverty(but you are rich). I also know the slander against you by those who call themselves Jews and really are not, but are a synagogue of Satan.
• Rev 3:9 : 9 Listen! I am going to make those people from the synagogue of Satan– who say they are Jews yet are not, but are lying– Look, I will make them come and bow down at your feet and acknowledge that I have loved you.
• 2 Pet 2:22 : 22 They are illustrations of this true proverb:“A dog returns to its own vomit,” and“A sow, after washing herself, wallows in the mire.”