< 2 Peter 2 >
1 However there were indeed false prophets among the people, as there will also be false teachers among you, whosoever shall bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Lord who bought them, bringing on themselves swift destruction.
2 And many will follow their impurities; through whom the way of truth will be slandered:
3 and in their covetousness they will sell you with their soft speeches: unto whom judgment from olden time tarries not, and their destruction does not slumber.
4 For if God spared not the angels who sinned, but having sent them down to hell, committed them to chains of darkness to be kept unto judgment; (Tartaroō )
5 and spared not the old world, but delivered Noah the eighth person, the preacher of righteousness, brings the flood upon the world of the ungodly;
6 and having destroyed the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, with a catastrophe he condemned them, having put them forth as an example to those about to be ungodly:
7 and he delivered righteous Lot, being grieved by the deportment of the ungodly in their debauchery:
8 (for the righteous man dwelling among them, by seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds: )
9 for the Lord knows how to rescue the godly out of temptations, and to keep the unrighteous unto the day of judgment enduring punishment:
10 and especially those going after the flesh in the lust of pollution, and despising lordship. Audacious darers, blaspheming, they do not tremble at glories;
11 where the angels, being greater in strength and power, do not bring a blasphemous judgment against them before the Lord.
12 But these, like irrational animals having been born naturally for capture and destruction, blaspheming those things in which they are ignorant; in their own corruption they will indeed corrupt themselves;
13 receiving the reward of unrighteousness, esteeming pleasure which is in the daytime; luxury; spots and blemishes, swelling in their deceits, feasting along with you,
14 having eyes full of an adulteress, and unable to cease from sin; beguiling unestablished souls: having a heart which has been made fat with covetousness; children of the curse:
15 leaving the straight way, they have wandered off, following in the way of Balaam the son of Bosor, who loved the reward of iniquity; and had the conviction of his own conscience:
16 the dumb workbeast having spoken with the voice of a man, rebuked the madness of the prophet.
17 These are fountains without water, and mists driven away by the storm, for which the blackness of darkness has been reserved.
18 For speaking swelling words of vanity, in the lusts of the flesh they beguile with their impurities, those that have but partially escaped, who are still moving about in their delusion;
19 promising them liberty, they themselves being the slaves of corruption: for to whatsoever any one has been subordinated, to this he has become enslaved.
20 For if having escaped the pollutions of the world through the perfect knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and having again become entangled in these things, they are overcome, the last state has to them become worse than the first.
21 For it was better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, having known it, to turn away from the holy commandment which has been delivered unto them.
22 It has happened unto them according to the old proverb, The dog having returned to his own vomit; and the sow that had washed to wallowing in the mire.
