² Many will follow their unrestrained ways, and the way of truth will be blasphemed because of them.^(A)

¹⁰ especially those who follow the polluting desires of the flesh and despise authority.^(A)

Bold, arrogant people! They do not tremble when they blaspheme the glorious ones;

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^[a] as they feast with you.

¹⁸ For by uttering boastful, empty words,^(A) they seduce, with fleshly desires and debauchery, people who have barely escaped^[a] 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.^{(B) 20} For if, having escaped the world’s impurity through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ,^(C) they are again entangled in these things and defeated, the last state is worse for them than the first.^{(D) 21} For it would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness^(E) than, after knowing it, to turn back from the holy command^(F) delivered^(G) to them.^{(H) 22} It has happened to them according to the true proverb: A dog returns to its own vomit,^(I)[b] and, “a sow, after washing itself, wallows in the mud.”