Chapter 2
1 But false prophets also arose among the people , as false teachers will also be among you , who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, denying even the Master who bought them , bringing on themselves swift destruction.
2 Many will follow their immoral ways , and as a result, the way of the truth will be maligned.
3 In covetousness they will exploit you with deceptive words : whose sentence now from of old doesn’ t linger, and their destruction will not slumber.
4 For if God didn’ t spare angels when they sinned, but cast them down to Tartarus, and committed them to pits of darkness to be reserved for judgment ;
5 and didn’t spare the ancient world , but preserved Noah with seven others , a preacher of righteousness , when he brought a flood on the world of the ungodly,
6 and turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes , condemned them to destruction , having made them an example to those who would live in an ungodly way,
7 and delivered righteous Lot , who was very distressed by the lustful life of the wicked
8 ( for that righteous man dwelling among them was tormented in his righteous soul from day to day with seeing and hearing lawless deeds ),
9 then the Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptation and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment ,
10 but chiefly those who walk after the flesh in the lust of defilement and despise authority . Daring , self-willed, they are not afraid to speak evil of dignitaries,
11 whereas angels, though greater in might and power , don’t bring a slanderous judgment against them before the Lord .
12 But these , as unreasoning creatures , born natural animals to be taken and destroyed , speaking evil in matters about which they are ignorant, will in their destroying surely be destroyed ,
13 receiving the wages of unrighteousness; people who count it pleasure to revel in the daytime , spots and defects, reveling in their deceit while they feast with you ;
14 having eyes full of adultery , and who can’t cease from sin, enticing unsettled souls , having a heart trained in greed , accursed children !
15 Forsaking the right way , they went astray , having followed the way of Balaam the son of Beor, who loved the wages of wrongdoing;
16 but he was rebuked for his own disobedience. A speechless donkey spoke with a man’ s voice and stopped the madness of the prophet .
17 These are wells without water, clouds driven by a storm , for whom the blackness of darkness has been reserved forever.
18 For , uttering great swelling words of emptiness, they entice in the lusts of the flesh , by licentiousness, those who are indeed escaping from those who live in error ;
19 promising them liberty , while they themselves are bondservants of corruption ; for a man is brought into bondage by whoever overcomes him .
20 For if , after they have escaped the defilement of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ , they are again entangled in it and overcome , the last state has become worse for them than the first .
21 For it would be 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 .
22 But it has happened to them according to the true proverb , " The dog turns to his own vomit again ," and " the sow that has washed to wallowing in the mire ."