¹²But these persons, like irrational animals born only with natural instincts for capture and killing, blaspheming about things^f they do not understand, in their destruction will also be destroyed, ¹³being harmed as the wages of unrighteousness. Considering reveling in the daytime a pleasure, they are stains and blemishes, carousing in their deceitful pleasures when they^* feast together with you, ¹⁴having eyes full of desire for an adulteress and unceasing from sin, enticing unstable persons, and^* having hearts trained for greediness. Accursed children! ¹⁵By^* leaving the straight path, they have gone astray, because they^* followed the way of Balaam the son of Bosor,^g who loved the wages of unrighteousness, ¹⁶but received a rebuke for his own lawlessness: a speechless donkey, speaking with a human voice, restrained the prophet’s madness^h.

¹⁷These people are waterless springs and mists driven by a hurricane, for whom the gloom of darkness has been reserved. ¹⁸For by speaking high-sounding but empty wordsⁱ, they entice with desires of the flesh and with licentiousness those who are scarcely escaping from those who live in error,

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Footnotes

fLiterally “with reference to which”
*Here “when” is supplied as a component of the participle (“feast together”) which is understood as temporal
*Here “and” is supplied in keeping with English style
*Here “by” is supplied as a component of the participle (“leaving”) which is understood as means
*Here “because” is supplied as a component of the participle (“followed”) which is understood as causal
gAlthough some English versions use “Beor” here, this is due to harmonization with the Old Testament; the vast majority of Greek manuscripts read “Bosor” here
hLiterally “the of the prophet madness”
iLiterally “for speaking pompous words of emptiness”