The Rise of False Prophets

1 But afalse prophets also arose among the people, just as there will also be bfalse teachers camong you, who will dsecretly introduce edestructive heresies, even fdenying the gMaster who hbought them, bringing swift destruction upon themselves.

2 Many will follow their asensuality, and because of them bthe way of the truth will be cmaligned;

3 and in their agreed they will bexploit you with cfalse words; dtheir judgment from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep.

4 For aif God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and bcommitted them to pits of darkness, reserved for judgment;

5 and did not spare athe ancient world, but preserved bNoah, a 1preacher of righteousness, with seven others, when He brought a cflood upon the world of the ungodly;

6 and if He acondemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to destruction by reducing them to ashes, having made them an bexample to those who would clive ungodly lives thereafter;

7 and if He arescued righteous Lot, oppressed by the bsensual conduct of cunprincipled men

8 (for by what he saw and heard that arighteous man, while living among them, felt his righteous soul tormented day after day by their lawless deeds),

9 athen the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from 1temptation, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the bday of judgment,

10 and especially those who 1aindulge the flesh in its corrupt desires and bdespise authority.

Daring, cself-willed, they do not tremble when they brevile angelic 2majesties,