2 Peter 2

1In the past there were false prophets among the people of Israel, and in the same way there will be false teachers among you. They will quietly bring in teachings that lead to destruction, and they will even disown the Master who bought them. So they will bring swift destruction on themselves. 2Many people will follow their shameless ways, and because of them the way of truth will be slandered. 3In their greed they will make money out of you with stories they have invented. But the judgment passed on them long ago has not been sitting idle, and their destruction has not fallen asleep.

4God did not spare the angels who sinned. He threw them down into Tartarus and handed them over to chains of deepest darkness, where they are held for judgment. 5Nor did he spare the ancient world. When he brought the flood on a world of ungodly people, he kept Noah safe with seven others, Noah who proclaimed righteousness. 6He condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ruin and burned them to ashes, and made them an example of what is coming to the ungodly. 7But he rescued Lot, a righteous man who was worn down by the shameless conduct of lawless people. 8Living among them day after day, that righteous man tormented his righteous soul over the lawless deeds he saw and heard. 9If God did all this, then clearly the Lord knows how to rescue those who are godly from their trials, and how to hold the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment, 10above all those who chase after the flesh with its defiling desires and who look down on the Lord’s authority. Reckless and arrogant, they are not afraid to slander the glorious ones, 11when even angels, who are greater in strength and power, do not bring a slanderous judgment against them. 12But these people are like animals that cannot reason, ruled by instinct, born to be caught and killed. They slander what they do not understand, and like those animals they too will be destroyed, 13suffering harm as payment for the harm they have done. They think it a pleasure to indulge themselves in broad daylight. They are stains and blemishes, enjoying their deceptions while they eat with you at your meals. 14Their eyes are always on the lookout for adultery and never have enough of sin. They lure people who are not yet steady. They have practiced greed until their hearts are skilled in it. They are people under a curse! 15They have abandoned the straight road and lost their way, following the road of Balaam son of Bosor, who loved the pay he could get for doing wrong. 16But he was confronted with his own lawbreaking. A donkey, which has no power of speech, talked in a human voice and stopped the prophet in his madness.

17These people are springs that have run dry, mists chased along by a squall. The blackest darkness is being kept for them. 18They speak big, empty words, and with the flesh and its shameless desires as bait they lure people who are only just getting away from those who are living astray. 19They promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption. For anyone who is overcome by something has become its slave. 20For if they have escaped the filth of the world by knowing the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and then get tangled up in it again and overcome, they end up worse off than they were at the start. 21They would have been better off never knowing the way of righteousness than knowing it and then abandoning the holy commandment entrusted to them. 22The true proverb has come true for them: “A dog goes back to what it threw up,” and, “A pig, once washed, goes back to rolling in the mud.”