³⁰ Some even from your own group will come distorting the truth in order to entice the disciples to follow them.

¹⁹ They went out from us, but they did not belong to us, for if they had belonged to us they would have remained^[a] with us. But by going out they made it plain that none of them belongs to us.^(A)

³ For the time is coming when people will not put up with sound teaching, but, having their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires^{(A) 4} and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander away to myths.

⁴ For certain intruders have stolen in among you, people who long ago were designated for this condemnation as ungodly, who pervert the grace of our God into debauchery and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.^[a](A)

Judgment on False Teachers

⁵ Now I desire to remind you, though you are fully informed, once and for all, that Jesus, who saved^[b] a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe.^{(B) 6} And the angels who did not keep their own position but deserted their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains in deepest darkness for the judgment of the great day.^{(C) 7} Likewise, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which, in the same manner as they, indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural lust,^[c] serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.^(D)

⁸ Yet in the same way these dreamers also defile the flesh, reject authority, and slander the glorious ones.^{[d](E) 9} But when the archangel Michael disputed with the devil and argued about the body of Moses, he did not dare to bring a condemnation of slander^[e] against him but said, “The Lord rebuke you!”^{(F) 10} But these people slander whatever they do not understand, and they are destroyed by those things that, like irrational animals, they know by instinct. ¹¹ Woe to them! For they go the way of Cain and abandon themselves to Balaam’s error for the sake of gain and perish in Korah’s rebellion.^{(G) 12} These are blots^[f] on your love feasts, while they feast with you without fear, feeding themselves.^[g] They are waterless clouds carried along by the winds; autumn trees without fruit, twice dead, uprooted;^{(H) 13} wild waves of the sea, casting up the foam of their own shame; wandering stars, for whom the deepest darkness has been reserved forever.^(I)

¹⁴ It was also about these that Enoch, in the seventh generation from Adam, prophesied, saying, “See, the Lord is coming^[h] with ten thousands of his holy ones,^{(J) 15} to execute judgment on all and to convict all the ungodly^[i] of all the deeds of ungodliness that they have committed in such an ungodly way and of all the harsh things that ungodly sinners have spoken against him.” ¹⁶ These are grumblers and malcontents; they indulge their lusts;^[j] their mouths utter bombastic nonsense, flattering people to their own advantage.^(K)

¹⁹ having faith and a good conscience. By rejecting conscience, certain persons have suffered shipwreck in the faith;^{(A) 20} among them are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have turned over to Satan, so that they may be taught not to blaspheme.^(B)

²⁶ and when he had found him he brought him to Antioch. So it was that for an entire year they met with the church and taught a great many people, and it was in Antioch that the disciples were first called “Christians.”^(A)

⁶ Yet this is to your credit: you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.

⁷ Many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh; any such person is the deceiver and the antichrist!^(A)

¹⁸ For they speak bombastic nonsense, and with debased^[a] desires of the flesh they entice people who have just^[b] escaped from those who live in error.