2 Peter 2:1–10

The Rise and Fall of the False Teachers

2But there were also false prophets among the people, as there will be false teachers among you also, who will bring in destructive heresies^a, even denying the Master who bought them, thus^* bringing on themselves swift destruction. ²And many will follow their licentious ways, because of whom the way of truth will be reviled. ³And in greediness they will exploit you with false words, whose condemnation from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep.

⁴For if God did not spare the angels who sinned, but held them captive in Tartarus with chains of darkness and handed them over to be kept for judgment, ⁵and did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a proclaimer of righteousness, and seven others^b 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, having appointed them as an example for those who are going to be ungodly, ⁷and rescued righteous Lot, worn down by the way of life of lawless persons in licentiousness ⁸(for that righteous man, as he^* lived among them day after day, was tormenting his righteous soul by the lawless deeds he was seeing and hearing), ⁹then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials and to reserve the unrighteous to be punished at^c the day of judgment, ¹⁰and especially those who go after the flesh in defiling lust^d and who despise authority.

Bold and arrogant, they do not tremble in awe as they^* blaspheme majestic beings,