The Greek adjective athesmos (ἄθεσμος) means lawless, unprincipled, or without moral restraint — literally 'without law/ordinance' (from a- [negative] + thesmos, law/ordinance). It describes someone who operates outside the bounds of divinely established moral order, rejecting the standards that God has set.
The word appears twice in the New Testament, both in 2 Peter, where it describes the culture of Sodom that tormented Lot's righteous soul (2 Peter 2:7) and the environment of ungodliness that believers must resist (2 Peter 3:17).
The concept of lawlessness (athesmia) is central to the New Testament's description of spiritual rebellion. 2 Thessalonians 2 describes the 'man of lawlessness' (anomia) as the ultimate expression of anti-God rebellion. John identifies 'sin' with lawlessness in 1 John 3:4 — 'sin is lawlessness.'
But Peter's use of athesmos is more pastoral: he describes Lot as righteous because his soul was tormented by the lawlessness surrounding him. This is a critical test of spiritual health — does wickedness still disturb us? When we become comfortable with the athesmos culture around us, something of our spiritual sensitivity has died. Righteousness feels the friction of unrighteousness; it cannot simply coexist.