Their teachings are destructive

1However, there were also false prophets among the people, just as, indeed, there will be false teachers among you, who will introduce ³¹destructive heresies, even denying the Owner who bought them (bringing on themselves swift destruction). ³²

2And many will follow their licentious ways, because of which the way of the Truth will be defamed. ³³

3And in covetousness they will exploit you with deceptive words; since way back the judgment for such people is not slack, and their destruction will not sleep.

Their doom is sure

4Because if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but delivered them into chains of darkness, confining them in Tartarus ³⁴to be reserved for judgment,

5and did not spare the ancient world but preserved Noah, with seven others, a preacher of righteousness, when He brought a flood on the world of the ungodly,

6and condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to destruction, reducing them to ashes (providing a warning to those who are intent on being ungodly), ³⁵

7while He rescued upright Lot, who was distressed by the licentious lifestyle of the wicked

8(for that upright man, ³⁶dwelling among them, tormented an upright soul from day to day by seeing and hearing lawless deeds)

9—then the Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of testings and to reserve the unjust under punishment ³⁷for the day of judgment,

10and especially those who go after the flesh in the lust for defilement, ³⁸and despise authority. Their depravity is ‘unreal’ They are audacious, self-willed; they are not afraid to revile majestic beings, ³⁹

11whereas angels, though being greater in might and power, ⁴⁰do not bring a reviling accusation against them before the Lord. ⁴¹

12But these, as unreasoning animals, creatures of instinct made to be caught and destroyed, spouting off in matters of which they are ignorant, will be destroyed by their own depravity, ⁴²

13receiving the wages of unrighteousness. Counting it a pleasure to carouse in the daytime, they are stains and blemishes, reveling in their own deceptions ⁴³while they feast with you,

14having eyes full of adultery and that cannot cease from sin, ⁴⁴enticing unstable souls; having a heart trained in greediness they are children of a curse; ⁴⁵

15having forsaken the right way ⁴⁶they have gone astray, having followed the way of Balaam of Bosor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness;

16but he got a rebuke for his wrongdoing—a mute donkey speaking with a human voice restrained the insanity of the prophet. ⁴⁷

17These are waterless springs, clouds driven by a storm, ⁴⁸for whom the blackest of the darkness ⁴⁹has been reserved forever. ⁵⁰

Their victims lose out

18Because speaking pompous words of emptiness they entice through fleshly lusts, through licentiousness, those who have actually escaped from those who are living in error,

19promising them freedom while they themselves are slaves of corruption; for by whom a person is overcome, by him also he is brought into bondage.

20For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the real knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the latter circumstances have become worse for them than the first ones.

21For it would have been better ⁵¹for them not to have really known the way of the righteousness, than having really known it to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them.

22But it has happened to them according to the true proverb: a dog returns to its own vomit and a bathed sow to wallowing in mud.