Peter's Second Letter (WEB)
2:1 But there also arose false prophets among the people, as among you also there will be false
teachers, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, denying even the Master who bought
them, bringing on themselves swift destruction. 2:2Many will follow their destructive ways, and as
a result, the way of the truth will be maligned. 2:3In covetousness will they exploit you with
deceptive words: whose sentence now from of old doesn't linger, and their destruction will not
slumber. 2:4For if God didn't spare angels when they sinned, but cast them down to Tartarus, and
committed them to pits of darkness, to be reserved to judgment; 2:5and didn't spare the ancient
world, but preserved Noah with seven others, a preacher of righteousness, when he brought a
flood on the world of the ungodly; 2:6and turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes,
condemned them to destruction, having made them an example to those who would live ungodly;
2:7and delivered righteous Lot, very distressed by the lustful life of the wicked 2:8(for that righteous
man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, tormented his righteous soul from day to day
with lawless deeds): 2:9the Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptation, and to keep the
unrighteous under punishment to the day of judgment; 2:10but chiefly those who walk after the flesh
in the lust of defilement, and despise authority. Daring, self-willed, they are not afraid to speak
evil of dignitaries; 2:11whereas angels, though greater in might and power, don't bring a railing
judgment against them before the Lord. 2:12But these, as creatures without reason, born mere
animals to be taken and destroyed, speaking evil in matters about which they are ignorant, will in
their destroying surely be destroyed, 2:13receiving the wages of unrighteousness; people who count
it pleasure to revel in the day-time, spots and blemishes, reveling in their deceit while they feast
with you; 2:14having eyes full of adultery, and who can't cease from sin; enticing unsettled souls;
having a heart trained in greed; children of cursing; 2:15forsaking the right way, they went astray,
having followed the way of Balaam the son of Beor, who loved the wages of wrong-doing; 2:16but
he was rebuked for his own disobedience. A mute donkey spoke with man's voice and stopped the
madness of the prophet. 2:17These are wells without water, clouds driven by a storm; for whom the
blackness of darkness has been reserved forever. 2:18For, uttering great swelling words of
emptiness, they entice in the lusts of the flesh, by licentiousness, those who are indeed escaping
from those who live in error; 2:19promising them liberty, while they themselves are bondservants of
corruption; for by whom a man is overcome, by the same is he also brought into bondage. 2:20For
if, after they have escaped the defilement of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and
Savior, Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein and overcome, the last state has become
worse with them than the first. 2:21For it would be better for them not to have known the way of
righteousness, than, after knowing it, to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them.
2:22But it has happened to them according to the true proverb, "The dog turns to his own vomit
again," and "the sow that had washed to wallowing in the mire."