[1] But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be
false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies,
even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift
destruction. [2] And many will follow their licentiousness, and because of
them the way of truth will be reviled. [3] And in their greed they will
exploit you with false words; from of old their condemnation has not been
idle, and their destruction has not been asleep. [4] For if God did not
spare the angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed
them to pits of nether gloom to be kept until the judgment; [5] if he did
not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness,
with seven other persons, when he brought a flood upon the world of the
ungodly; [6] if by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomor'rah to ashes he
condemned them to extinction and made them an example to those who were to
be ungodly; [7] and if he rescued righteous Lot, greatly distressed by the
licentiousness of the wicked [8] (for by what that righteous man saw and
heard as he lived among them, he was vexed in his righteous soul day after
day with their lawless deeds), [9] then the Lord knows how to rescue the
godly from trial, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the
day of judgment, [10] and especially those who indulge in the lust of
defiling passion and despise authority. Bold and wilful, they are not
afraid to revile the glorious ones, [11] whereas angels, though greater in
might and power, do not pronounce a reviling judgment upon them before the
Lord. [12] But these, like irrational animals, creatures of instinct, born
to be caught and killed, reviling in matters of which they are ignorant,
will be destroyed in the same destruction with them, [13] suffering wrong
for their wrongdoing. They count it pleasure to revel in the daytime. They
are blots and blemishes, reveling in their dissipation, carousing with you.
[14] They have eyes full of adultery, insatiable for sin. They entice
unsteady souls. They have hearts trained in greed. Accursed children! [15]
Forsaking the right way they have gone astray; they have followed the way
of Balaam, the son of Be'or, who loved gain from wrongdoing, [16] but was
rebuked for his own transgression; a dumb ass spoke with human voice and
restrained the prophet's madness. [17] These are waterless springs and
mists driven by a storm; for them the nether gloom of darkness has been
reserved. [18] For, uttering loud boasts of folly, they entice with
licentious passions of the flesh men who have barely escaped from those who
live in error. [19] They promise them freedom, but they themselves are
slaves of corruption; for whatever overcomes a man, to that he is enslaved.
[20] For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through
the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled
in them and overpowered, the last state has become worse for them than the
first. [21] For it would have been better for them never to have known the
way of righteousness than after knowing it to turn back from the holy
commandment delivered to them. [22] It has happened to them according to
the true proverb, The dog turns back to his own vomit, and the sow is
washed only to wallow in the mire.
