For if God did not spare (A)angels when they sinned, but (B)cast them into hell[a] and committed them to chains[b] of gloomy darkness (C)to be kept until the judgment; if he did not spare the ancient world, but (D)preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven others, when he brought (E)a flood upon the world of the ungodly; if by (F)turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes he condemned them to extinction, (G)making them an example of (H)what is going to happen to the ungodly;[c] and (I)if he rescued righteous Lot, greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of the wicked (for as that righteous man lived among them day after day, (J)he was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard); then (K)the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials,[d] and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment,

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Footnotes

  1. 2 Peter 2:4 Greek Tartarus
  2. 2 Peter 2:4 Some manuscripts pits
  3. 2 Peter 2:6 Some manuscripts an example to those who were to be ungodly
  4. 2 Peter 2:9 Or temptations

4-5 God didn’t let the rebel angels off the hook, but jailed them in hell till Judgment Day. Neither did he let the ancient ungodly world off. He wiped it out with a flood, rescuing only eight people—Noah, the sole voice of righteousness, was one of them.

6-8 God decreed destruction for the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. A mound of ashes was all that was left—grim warning to anyone bent on an ungodly life. But that good man Lot, driven nearly out of his mind by the sexual filth and perversity, was rescued. Surrounded by moral rot day after day after day, that righteous man was in constant torment.

So God knows how to rescue the godly from evil trials. And he knows how to hold the feet of the wicked to the fire until Judgment Day.

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