2 Peter 2:1-22 - The Rise And Fall Of The False Teachers

¹ But there were also false prophets among the people, even as there will be false teachers among you, who secretly will bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing on themselves swift destruction. ² And many will follow their pernicious ways, and because of them the way of truth will be evil spoken of. ³ And through covetousness they will use you for gain with well-turned words; for whom judgment from of old does not linger, and their destruction does not sleep.

⁴ For if God did not spare sinning angels, but thrust them down into Tartarus, and delivered them into chains of darkness, being reserved to judgment. ⁵ And He did not spare the old world, but saved Noah the eighth one, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly. ⁶ And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, He condemned them with an overthrow, setting an example to men intending to live ungodly. ⁷ And He delivered righteous Lot, oppressed with the lustful behavior of the lawless. ⁸ For that righteous one living among them, in seeing and hearing, his righteous soul was tormented from day to day with their unlawful deeds. ⁹ The Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptation, and to reserve the unjust for a day of judgment, to be punished, ¹⁰ and especially those who walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanness, and despise dominion. They are darers, self-pleasing; not trembling at glories, speaking evil. ¹¹ Where angels, who are greater in power and might, do not bring a reproaching accusation against them before the Lord. ¹² But these, as unreasoning natural brute animals having been born for capture and corruption, speak evil of the things that they do not understand. And they will utterly perish in their own corruption, ¹³ being about to receive the wages of unrighteousness, deeming indulgence as pleasure in the daytime, and reveling in spots and blemishes, feasting along with you in their deceits, ¹⁴ having eyes full of adultery and never ceasing from sin, alluring unstable souls, having a heart exercised with covetousness. They are cursed children ¹⁵ who have forsaken the right way and have gone astray, following the way of Balaam the son of Beor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness, ¹⁶ but had reproof of his lawbreaking, a dumb ass speaking in a man's voice, held back the madness of the prophet.

¹⁷ These are wells without water, clouds driven with a tempest, for whom the blackness of darkness is reserved forever. ¹⁸ For when they speak great swelling words of vanity, they lure through the lusts of the flesh, by unbridled lust, the ones who were escaping from those who live in error; ¹⁹ promising them liberty, they themselves are the slaves of corruption. For by whom anyone has been overcome, even to this one he has been enslaved. ²⁰ For if they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the full knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and are again entangled, they have been overcome by these, their last things are worse than the first. ²¹ For it would have been better for them not to have fully known the way of righteousness, than fully knowing it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered to them. ²² But the word of the true proverb has happened to them: The dog turning to his own vomit; and, The washed sow to wallowing in the mire.