The Greek halōsis (ἅλωσις) means "capture" or "catching" — specifically the catching of wild animals for slaughter. It appears once in the New Testament in 2 Peter 2:12, where false teachers are compared to "irrational animals, creatures of instinct, born to be caught and destroyed [eis halōsin kai phthoran]." The term is clinical and stark — describing the fate of those who follow their base instincts into destruction.
The single New Testament use of halōsis in 2 Peter 2:12 is part of Peter's severe condemnation of false teachers who have infiltrated the church. By comparing them to wild animals born for halōsis (capture and slaughter), Peter uses creation language to describe the spiritual trajectory of those who "blaspheme about matters of which they are ignorant." The image is sobering: as surely as a wild animal stalked by a hunter is moving toward its end without knowing it, so false teachers who indulge the flesh and despise authority are moving toward judgment. This passage calls the church to discernment and warns that theological error is never merely intellectual — it has eternal consequences.