But there also arose false prophets among the people, as among you also there will be false teachers, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, denying even the Master who bought them, bringing on themselves swift destruction.
Many will follow their destructive ways, and as a result, the way of the truth will be maligned.
In covetousness will they exploit you with deceptive words: whose sentence now from of old doesn’t linger, and their destruction will not slumber.
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 to judgment;
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;
and turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemned them to destruction, having made them an example to those who would live ungodly;
and delivered righteous Lot, very distressed by the lustful life of the wicked
(for that righteous man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, tormented his righteous soul from day to day with lawless deeds):
the Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptation, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment to the day of judgment;
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;
whereas angels, though greater in might and power, don’t bring a railing judgment against them before the Lord.
But these, as creatures without reason, born mere animals to be taken and destroyed, speaking evil in matters about which they are ignorant, will in their destroying surely be destroyed,
receiving the wages of unrighteousness; people who count it pleasure to revel in the day-time, spots and blemishes, reveling in their deceit while they feast with you;
having eyes full of adultery, and who can’t cease from sin; enticing unsettled souls; having a heart trained in greed; children of cursing;
forsaking the right way, they went astray, having followed the way of Balaam the son of Beor, who loved the wages of wrong-doing;
but he was rebuked for his own disobedience. A mute donkey spoke with man’s voice and stopped the madness of the prophet.
These are wells without water, clouds driven by a storm; for whom the blackness of darkness has been reserved forever.
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;
promising them liberty, while they themselves are bondservants of corruption; for by whom a man is overcome, by the same is he also brought into bondage.
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 therein and overcome, the last state has become worse with them than the first.
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.
But it has happened to them according to the true proverb, "The dog turns to his own vomit again," and "the sow that had washed to wallowing in the mire."
