2 Many will follow their depraved ways, and the way of truth will be maligned because of them.af 3 They will exploitag you in their greedah with made-up stories. Their condemnation,ai pronounced long ago, is not idle, and their destruction does not sleep.

4 For if God didn’t spareaj the angels who sinned but cast them into hellF,ak and delivered them in chainsG of utter darkness to be kept for judgment;al 5 and if he didn’t spare the ancient world, but protected Noah,am a preacher of righteousness, and seven others,H,an when he brought the flood on the world of the ungodly; 6 and if he reduced the cities of Sodom and Gomorraha to ashes and condemned them to extinction,A making them an example of what is coming to the ungodly;B,b 7 and if he rescued righteous Lot,c distressed by the depraved behavior of the immoral 8 (for as that righteous man lived among them day by day, his righteous soul was tormented by the lawless deeds he saw and heardd)—9 then the Lord knows how to rescuee the godly from trials and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment,f