⁴God did not spare angels when they sinned. Instead, he sent them to hell. He put them in dark prisons. He will keep them there until he judges them. ⁵God did not spare the world’s ungodly people long ago. He brought the flood on them. But Noah preached about the right way to live. God kept him safe. He also saved seven others. ⁶God judged the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. He burned them to ashes. He made them an example of what is going to happen to ungodly people.

⁷God saved Lot. He was a man who did what was right. He was shocked by the dirty, sinful lives of people who didn’t obey God’s laws. ⁸That good man lived among them day after day. He saw and heard the evil things they were doing. They were breaking God’s laws. And his godly spirit was deeply troubled.

⁹So the Lord knows how to keep godly people safe in times of testing. He also knows how to keep ungodly people under guard until the day they will be judged. In the meantime, he continues to punish them. ¹⁰Most of all, this is true of people who follow the evil longings of their sinful natures. They hate to be under authority.

Those false prophets are bold and proud. They aren’t afraid to speak evil things against heavenly beings. ¹¹Angels are stronger and more powerful than those people. But even angels don’t bring to the Lord evil charges against heavenly beings.

¹²Those people speak evil about things they don’t understand. They are like wild animals. They do what comes naturally to them. They are born only to be caught and destroyed. Just like animals, they too will die.

¹³They will be paid back with harm for the harm they have done. Their idea of pleasure is to have wild parties in the middle of the day. They are like spots and stains. They enjoy their sinful pleasures while they eat with you. ¹⁴They stare at women who are not their wives. They want to have sex with them. They never stop sinning. They trap those who are not firm in their faith. They have mastered the art of getting what they want. God has placed them under his curse.

¹⁵They have left God’s way. They have wandered off. They follow the way of Balaam, son of Beor. He loved to get paid for doing his evil work. ¹⁶But a donkey corrected him for the wrong he did. Animals don’t speak. But the donkey spoke with a human voice. It tried to stop the prophet from doing a very dumb thing.

¹⁷Those false prophets are like springs without water. They are like mists driven by a storm. The blackest darkness is reserved for them.

¹⁸They speak empty, bragging words. They make their appeal to the earthly longings of people’s sinful nature. They tempt new believers who are just escaping from the company of sinful people. ¹⁹They promise to give freedom to the new believers. But they themselves are slaves to sinful living. A person is a slave to anything that controls him.

²⁰They may have escaped the sin of the world. They may have come to know our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. But what if they are once again caught up in sin? And what if it has become their master? Then they are worse off at the end than they were at the beginning.

²¹What if they had not known the way of godliness? That would have been better than to have known it and then to have turned their backs on it. The way of godliness is the sacred command that was passed on to them.

²²What the proverbs say about them is true. “A dog returns to where it has thrown up.” And, “A pig that is washed goes back to rolling in the mud.”

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