2 Peter / The Danger and Judgment of False Teachers

The Danger and Judgment of False Teachers

2 Peter 2:1-22

Chapter 2

¹ But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly bring in sects of destruction, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing swift destruction upon themselves. ² And many will follow their sensuality, through whom the way of truth will be blasphemed. ³ and with greed, in fabricated words, they will exploit you; for whom the judgment from long ago does not delay, and their destruction does not slumber. ⁴ For if God did not spare the angels who sinned, but imprisoned them in Tartarus with chains of darkness and handed them over to be kept for judgment, ⁵ and he did not spare the ancient world. But he guarded Noah, a herald of righteousness, the eighth person, having brought a flood on a world of the ungodly. ⁶ and if he reduced the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes and condemned them with overthrow, having set an example for those who are to be ungodly— ⁷ and the righteous Lot, being worn down by the conduct in sensuality of the lawless ones, he delivered— ⁸ For as he lived among them day after day, the righteous man, by sight and hearing, tormented his righteous soul with their lawless deeds— ⁹ the Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptation, but to keep the unrighteous being punished unto day of judgment, ¹⁰ especially those who go after the flesh in desire of defilement and despise rank of dominion. Daredevils, audacious ones, they do not tremble at glories, blaspheming, ¹¹ where angels, who are stronger in strength and greater in power, do not bring a blasphemous judgment against them. ¹² But these, as irrational living creatures born naturally for capture and corruption, blaspheme the things they do not understand; in their corruption they will also be destroyed. ¹³ being wronged as the reward of unrighteousness; counting daytime luxury as pleasure, spots and blemishes indulging in their deceptions while feasting together with you, ¹⁴ eyes full of adultery and unceasing sin, enticing unestablished souls, having a heart trained in greed, children of curses, ¹⁵ leaving the straight way, they went astray, having followed the way of Balaam of Beor, who loved a wage of unrighteousness ¹⁶ but he had a rebuke for his own lawlessness: a voiceless beast of burden that uttered a voice in a man's sound restrained the prophet's madness. ¹⁷ These are waterless springs and mists driven by a gale, for whom the gloom of darkness has been kept. ¹⁸ For by uttering bombastic words of futility they entice those in fleshly desires with sensuality—the ones almost escaping, the ones in error being turned about in conduct, ¹⁹ promising them freedom, while they themselves are slaves of corruption—for by what one is defeated, by this one has also been enslaved. ²⁰ For if, having escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled by them and overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first. ²¹ For it was better for them not to have come to know the way of righteousness than, having come to know it, to turn back from the holy commandment handed over to them. ²² It has happened to them according to the true proverb: "A dog returns to its own vomit, and a sow, having bathed, goes to wallow in mud."