God Will Punish These False Teachers

⁴ For if God did not spare angels when they sinned but handed them over to chains^[a] of darkness by casting them into hell, to be kept under guard for judgment; ⁵ and if God did not spare the ancient world but preserved Noah, a preacher of righteousness, along with seven others when he brought a flood on the world of ungodly people; ⁶ and if God condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to destruction,^[b] by turning them into ashes when he made them an example of things to come for the ungodly;^{[c] 7} and if he rescued righteous Lot, who was very distressed by the unrestrained immorality of the wicked people ⁸ (while that righteous man was living among them, he was tormented in his righteous soul day after day by the lawless deeds he saw and heard); ⁹ then the Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptation and to keep the unrighteous under guard until the day of judgment, in order to punish them.

¹⁰ This is especially true of those who follow the defiling lust of the flesh and who despise authority. Daring and arrogant, they do not tremble when they blaspheme glorious beings,