the deceptions of the lawless one and are now “in the path that leads to ruin” (Way). The present tense connotes that their perishing has already begun and that a “complete transformation” of these victims would be “required to bring them out of the ruin implicit in their state.”69 As a class, they are the opposite of those “now being saved” (1 Cor. 1:18). The path that they are persistently following will inevitably plunge them into “perdition” (see remarks under v. 3 above), for in character and