The Judgment of False Teachers

2 But there were also false prophets^(A) among the people, just as there will be false teachers^(B) among you. They will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought^(C) them, and will bring swift destruction on themselves. ² Many will follow their unrestrained ways, and the way of truth will be blasphemed because of them.^{(D) 3} They will exploit^(E) you in their greed^(F) with deceptive words. Their condemnation,^(G) pronounced long ago, is not idle, and their destruction does not sleep.

⁴ For if God didn’t spare^(H) the angels who sinned but threw them down into Tartarus^[a](I) and delivered them to be kept in chains^[b] of darkness until judgment;^{(J) 5} and if He didn’t spare the ancient world, but protected Noah,^(K) a preacher of righteousness, and seven others,^[c](L) when He brought a flood on the world of the ungodly; ⁶ and if He reduced the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah^(M) to ashes and condemned them to ruin,^[d] making them an example to those who were going to be ungodly;^{[e](N) 7} and if He rescued righteous Lot,^(O) distressed by the unrestrained behavior of the immoral ⁸ (for as he lived among them, that righteous man tormented himself day by day with the lawless deeds he saw and heard^(P))— ⁹ then the Lord knows how to rescue^(Q) the godly from trials and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment,^{(R) 10} especially those who follow the polluting desires of the flesh and despise authority.^(S)

Bold, arrogant people! They do not tremble when they blaspheme the glorious ones; ¹¹ however, angels, who are greater in might and power, do not bring a slanderous charge against them before the Lord.^{[f] 12} But these people, like irrational animals—creatures of instinct born to be caught and destroyed—speak blasphemies about things they don’t understand, and in their destruction they too will be destroyed, ¹³ suffering harm as the payment for unrighteousness. They consider it a pleasure to carouse in the daytime. They are spots and blemishes, delighting in their deceptions^[g] as they feast with you. ¹⁴ They have eyes full of adultery^(T) and are always looking for sin. They seduce unstable people and have hearts trained in greed. Children under a curse!^{(U) 15} They have gone astray by abandoning the straight path^(V) and have followed the path of Balaam,^(W) the son of Bosor,^[h] who loved the wages of unrighteousness^{(X) 16} but received a rebuke for his transgression: A donkey that could not talk spoke with a human voice and restrained the prophet’s irrationality.^(Y)

¹⁷ These people are springs without water, mists driven by a whirlwind. The gloom of darkness has been reserved for them.^{(Z) 18} For by uttering boastful, empty words,^(AA) they seduce, with fleshly desires and debauchery, people who have barely escaped^[i] from those who live in error. ¹⁹ They promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption, since people are enslaved to whatever defeats them.^{(AB) 20} For if, having escaped the world’s impurity through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ,^(AC) they are again entangled in these things and defeated, the last state is worse for them than the first.^{(AD) 21} For it would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness^(AE) than, after knowing it, to turn back from the holy command^(AF) delivered^(AG) to them.^{(AH) 22} It has happened to them according to the true proverb: A dog returns to its own vomit,^(AI)[j] and, “a sow, after washing itself, wallows in the mud.”