Judgment on False Teachers

3 Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our fcommon salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you gto contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints. 4 For hcertain people ihave crept in unnoticed jwho long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people, who pervert kthe grace of our God into sensuality and ldeny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.

5 Now I want mto remind you, although you once fully knew it, that nJesus, who saved3 a people out of the land of Egypt, oafterward destroyed those who did not believe. 6 And pthe angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day— 7 just as qSodom and Gomorrah and rthe surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and spursued unnatural desire,4 serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.

8 Yet in like manner these people also, relying on their dreams, defile the flesh, reject authority, and tblaspheme the glorious ones. 9 But when uthe archangel vMichael, contending with the devil, was disputing wabout the body of Moses, he did not presume to pronounce a blasphemous judgment, but said, x“The Lord rebuke you.” 10 yBut these people blaspheme all that they do not understand, and they are destroyed by all that they, like unreasoning animals, understand instinctively. 11 Woe to them! For they walked in zthe way of Cain and abandoned themselves for the sake of gain ato Balaam’s error and bperished in Korah’s rebellion. 12 These are hidden reefs5 cat your love feasts, as they feast with you without fear, dshepherds feeding themselves; ewaterless clouds, fswept along by winds; fruitless trees in late autumn, twice dead, guprooted; 13 hwild waves of the sea, casting up the foam of itheir own shame; jwandering stars, kfor whom the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved forever.