The Rise of False Prophets

1 But afalse prophets also arose among the people, just as there will also be bfalse teachers camong you, who will dsecretly introduce edestructive heresies, even fdenying the gMaster who hbought them, bringing swift destruction upon themselves.

2 Many will follow their asensuality, and because of them bthe way of the truth will be cmaligned;

3 and in their agreed they will bexploit you with cfalse words; dtheir judgment from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep.

4 For aif God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and bcommitted them to pits of darkness, reserved for judgment;

5 and did not spare athe ancient world, but preserved bNoah, a 1preacher of righteousness, with seven others, when He brought a cflood upon the world of the ungodly;

6 and if He acondemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to destruction by reducing them to ashes, having made them an bexample to those who would clive ungodly lives thereafter;

7 and if He arescued righteous Lot, oppressed by the bsensual conduct of cunprincipled men

8 (for by what he saw and heard that arighteous man, while living among them, felt his righteous soul tormented day after day by their lawless deeds),

9 athen the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from 1temptation, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the bday of judgment,

10 and especially those who 1aindulge the flesh in its corrupt desires and bdespise authority.

Daring, cself-willed, they do not tremble when they brevile angelic 2majesties,

11 awhereas angels who are greater in might and power do not bring a reviling judgment against them before the Lord.

12 But athese, like unreasoning animals, bborn as creatures of instinct to be captured and killed, reviling where they have no knowledge, will in 1the destruction of those creatures also be destroyed,

13 suffering wrong as athe wages of doing wrong. They count it a pleasure to brevel in the cdaytime. They are stains and blemishes, breveling in their 1deceptions, as they dcarouse with you,

14 having eyes full of adultery that never cease from sin, aenticing bunstable souls, having a heart trained in cgreed, daccursed children;

15 forsaking athe right way, they have gone astray, having followed bthe way of Balaam, the son of Beor, who loved cthe wages of unrighteousness;

16 but he received a rebuke for his own transgression, afor a mute donkey, speaking with a voice of a man, restrained the madness of the prophet.

17 These are asprings without water and mists driven by a storm, bfor whom the 1black darkness has been reserved.

18 For speaking out aarrogant words of bvanity they centice by fleshly desires, by dsensuality, those who barely eescape from the ones who live in error,

19 promising them freedom while they themselves are slaves of corruption; for aby what a man is overcome, by this he is enslaved.

20 For if, after they have aescaped the defilements of the world by bthe knowledge of the cLord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again dentangled in them and are overcome, ethe last state has become worse for them than the first.

21 aFor it would be better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to turn away from bthe holy commandment chanded on to them.

22 1It has happened to them according to the true proverb, “aA dog returns to its own vomit,” and, “A sow, after washing, returns to wallowing in the mire.”