1 But there were also false prophets among the people, as there shall also be false teachers among you, who shall bring in by stealth destructive heresies, even denying the master that bought them, bringing on themselves swift destruction;
2 and many shall follow their lewdness, on account of whom the way of truth shall be reviled,
3 and with covetousness they will make a gain of you with feigned words, whose judgment a long time lingers not, and their destruction slumbers not.
4 For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but plunging them into Tartarus delivered them up in chains to be kept in darkness till the judgment,
5 and spared not the old world, but preserved Noah a preacher of righteousness, with seven others, bringing the flood on the world of the ungodly,
6 and condemned Sodom and Gomorrah to be overthrown, reducing them to ashes, making them an example to those who should afterwards be wicked,
7 and delivered righteous Lot, vexed by the lewd conduct of the wicked;??8 for that righteous man living among them vexed his righteous soul from day to day by seeing and hearing their wicked deeds;??9 the Lord knows how to deliver the pious from trial, and to keep the wicked to the day of judgment to be punished,
10 but especially those who walk after the flesh, in corrupt desires, and despise goverment. Presumptuous, self-complacent, they fear not to revile glories,
11 where the angels who are greater in strength and power do not bring against them a reproachful judgment;
12 but these, like irrational animals, brutes made to be taken and destroyed, reviling things which they do not understand, will also be destroyed in their depravity,
13 receiving the wages of wickedness, accounting luxury in the day-time a pleasure, spots and blemishes, revelling in their deceptions while feasting with you,
14 having eyes full of an adulteress, and unable to cease from sin, enticing unstable souls, having a heart exercised in covetousness, cursed children,
15 having left the right way they have gone astray, following in the way of Balaam the son of Beor who loved the wages of wickedness,
16 but had a rebuke of his transgression; the dumb ass, speaking with a man's voice, forbade the madness of the prophet.
17 These are fountains without water, clouds driven by a tempest, to which is reserved the blackness of darkness.
18 For speaking extravagant words of vanity, they entice with carnal desires of lewdness those scarcely escaped from them, those living in error,
19 promising them liberty, when they themselves are servants of corruption; for by whatever a man is overcome, to this is he made a servant.
20 For if having escaped the defilements of the world by a knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled and overcome by them, the last state of those persons is worse than the first.
21 For it is better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, having known, to turn from the holy commandment delivered to them.
22 But it has happened to them according to the true proverb, The dog returned to his vomit, and the swine that was washed to wallowing in filth.