2 Peter 2Book 61 of 66 · 22 verses · MBT primary, NKJV fallback where MBT pending

  1. But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you — who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them — bringing on themselves swift destruction.
  2. And many will follow their licentiousness, and because of them the way of truth will be blasphemed.
  3. And in their greed they will exploit you with deceptive words. Their condemnation, from long ago, is not idle — and their destruction is not asleep.
  4. For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them down to hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness, kept until the judgment;
  5. and if He did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven others, when He brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly;
  6. and if He condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by reducing them to ashes, making them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly;
  7. and if He rescued righteous Lot, who was distressed by the licentious behavior of lawless men —
  8. for as that righteous man lived among them day after day, his righteous soul was tormented by what he saw and heard of their lawless deeds —
  9. then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trial, and how to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment;
  10. and especially those who walk according to the flesh in defiling lust, and who despise authority. Bold and arrogant, they are not afraid to revile glorious beings —
  11. whereas angels, though greater in might and power, do not bring a reviling judgment against them before the Lord.
  12. But these, like irrational animals, born of nature to be caught and destroyed — speaking abusively about things they do not understand — will also be destroyed in their corruption,
  13. suffering wrong as the wages for doing wrong. They count it pleasure to revel in broad daylight. They are spots and blemishes, reveling in their own deceptions while they feast with you.
  14. Their eyes are full of adultery and never cease from sin. They entice unsteady souls. They have hearts trained in greed — accursed children!
  15. Forsaking the right way, they have gone astray. They have followed the way of Balaam, son of Beor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness —
  16. but he was rebuked for his own transgression: a speechless donkey spoke with a man's voice and restrained the prophet's madness.
  17. These are springs without water, and mists driven by a storm. The gloom of darkness has been reserved for them.
  18. For when they speak arrogant, empty words, they entice — by lusts of the flesh, by sensuality — those who are barely escaping from the ones who live in error.
  19. They promise them freedom, while they themselves are slaves of corruption — for whatever overcomes a man, by that he is enslaved.
  20. For if, after escaping the defilements of the world through the full knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome — the last state has become worse for them than the first.
  21. It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness than, having known it, to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them.
  22. For them the true proverb has come true: "A dog returns to its own vomit," and, "A washed sow returns to wallowing in the mire."