Put away the old, put on the new
17 So then, I affirm and insist on this in the Lord: you must no longer carry on as the rest of the Gentiles do,It sounds like some of them were not being altogether successful in breaking with their former way of life. Breaking free from the culture that surrounds you, so as to embrace biblical values, is not easy. in the futility of their mind, 18 having been darkened in their understanding, being alienated [as a continuing condition] from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts,This works like a downward spiral: the ignorance feeds the hardening, that in turn increases the ignorance. The consequence is that they can never get out by themselves. Someone must take Christ’s power to them to help them out, before they become ‘dead to hope’. "Having been darkened" is passive voice; they are darkened by Satan, directly or indirectly. 19 who, having become dead to hope, have abandoned themselves to depravity, greedily indulging in every kind of vileness.What kind of person or being might be "dead to hope"? If someone is dead to hope, is he beyond hope, unrecoverable? And how should society defend itself against those who have "abandoned themselves to depravity"? The consequences of depravity always spill over into the surrounding society, and according to Psalm 5:5-6 the Lord hates such people, and so presumably will not ‘draw’ them (John 6:44). 1 John 5:16-17 teaches that certain sinners are beyond the reach of prayer, they have passed the point of no return. If someone cannot be saved, then he needs to be neutralized (because of the harm he causes to others) —we need to ask God to teach us how to do this.