⁴ For if God did not spare the angels when they sinned but cast them into hell and committed them to chains^[a] of deepest darkness to be kept until the judgment;^{(A) 5} and if he did not spare the ancient world, even though he saved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven others, when he brought a flood on the world of the ungodly;^{(B) 6} and if by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes he condemned them to destruction^[b] and made them an example of what is coming to the ungodly;^{[c] 7} and if he rescued Lot, a righteous man greatly distressed by the debauchery of the lawless^{(C) 8} (for that righteous man, living among them day after day, was tormented in his righteous soul by their lawless deeds that he saw and heard), ⁹ then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trial and to keep the unrighteous until the day of judgment, when they will be punished^{(D) 10} —especially those who indulge their flesh in depraved lust and who despise authority.

Bold and willful, they are not afraid to slander the glorious ones,^[d](E)