¹⁶ These are grumblers and malcontents; they indulge their lusts;^[a] their mouths utter bombastic nonsense, flattering people to their own advantage.^(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.

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,^[a](A)

¹⁴ Do all things without murmuring and arguing,^(A)

⁵ and wrangling among those who are depraved in mind and bereft of the truth, imagining that godliness is a means of gain.^[a](A)

¹⁰ And do not complain, as some of them did, and were destroyed by the destroyer.^(A)

¹⁸ for they said to you, “In the last time there will be scoffers, indulging their own ungodly lusts.”^(A)

³ First of all you must understand this, that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and indulging their own lusts^(A)

² so as to live for the rest of your time in the flesh no longer by human desires but by the will of God.^(A)

Live as Servants of God

¹¹ Beloved, I urge you as aliens and exiles to abstain from the desires of the flesh that wage war against the soul.^[a](A)