³Dear friends, although I^* was making every effort to write to you concerning our common salvation, I considered it a necessity to write to you to encourage you to contend for the faith delivered once and for all to the saints. ⁴For certain men^c have slipped in stealthily, who were designated long ago for this condemnation, ungodly ones, who change the grace of our God into licentiousness and who deny our only Master and Lord Jesus Christ.

Condemnation of the Ungodly False Teachers

⁵Now I want to remind you, although you know everything once and for all,^d that Jesus,^e having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, the second time destroyed those who did not believe. ⁶And the angels who did not keep to their own domain but deserted their proper dwelling place, he has kept in eternal bonds under deep gloom for the judgment of the great day, ⁷as Sodom and Gomorrah and the towns around them indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire^f in the same way as these, are exhibited as an example by^* undergoing the punishment of eternal fire.

⁸Despite that, in the same way also these men, because of their^* dreams, defile the flesh and reject authority and blaspheme majestic beings. ⁹But Michael the archangel, when he argued with the devil, disputing concerning the body of Moses, did not dare to pronounce a blasphemous judgment, but said, “The Lord rebuke you!” ¹⁰But these persons blaspheme all that they do not understand, and all that they understand by instinct like the irrational animals, by these things they are being destroyed. ¹¹Woe to them! For they have traveled in the way of Cain, and have given themselves up to the error of Balaam for gain, and have perished^g in the rebellion of Korah.

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Footnotes

*Here “although” is supplied as a component of the participle (“was making”) which is understood as concessive
cOr “people,” since the Greek term can be used in a generic sense, but if this statement is related to 2 Peter 2:12, it is more likely men are in view
dSome manuscripts place this word in the following clause
eSome manuscripts have “the Lord”
fLiterally “went after other flesh”
*Here “by” is supplied as a component of the participle (“undergoing”) which is understood as means
*Here “because” is supplied as a component of the participle (“dreams”) which is understood as causal
gOr possibly “will perish”