2 Peter 2:21

‘For it were better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after knowing it, to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them.'

And the sad thing for many of these people was that just as they were learning about the way of righteousness, and about Christ's holy teaching, and were almost ready for full response, they were being turned back from it into the ways of these false teachers.

And the same was true for the false teachers themselves. They too had been introduced into the way of righteousness, but had then become caught up with ideas that took them in the opposite direction. Better were it that they had never become involved, for their present position now made it harder for them genuinely to come to Christ.

For ‘the way of righteousness' compare Matthew 21:32. It was what was brought by John the Baptiser, in preparation for the coming of Jesus Christ. But they had not yet quite achieved to ‘the holy commandment delivered to them', the teaching of Jesus Christ Himself (compare John 13:34; John 15:12; John 15:17; and see John 14:21; John 14:21; John 15:10).