2 Peter 2


The Rise of False Prophets

But afalse prophets also arose among the people, just as there will also be bfalse teachers camong you, who will dsecretly introduce edestructive heresies, even fdenying the gMaster who hbought them, bringing swift destruction upon themselves.
2 And many will follow their asensuality, and because of them bthe way of the truth will be cmaligned. 3 And in their agreed they will bexploit you with cfalse words, dtheir judgment from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep.
4 For aif God did not spare angels who sinned, but cast them into the 1pit and bdelivered them to chains of darkness, being kept for judgment;
5 and did not spare athe ancient world, but preserved bNoah, a 1preacher of righteousness, with seven others, when He brought a cflood upon the world of the ungodly; 6 and if He acondemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to destruction by reducing them to ashes, having made them an bexample to those who would clive ungodly lives thereafter; 7 and if He arescued righteous Lot, oppressed by the bsensual conduct of cunprincipled men 8 (for by what he saw and heard that arighteous man, while living among them, felt his righteous soul tormented day after day by their lawless deeds), 9 athen the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from 1trial, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the bday of judgment, 10 and especially those who ago after the flesh in its corrupt lust and bdespise authority.
Daring, cself-willed, they do not tremble when they bblaspheme 1glorious ones,
11 awhereas angels who are greater in strength and power do not bring a reviling judgment against them before the Lord. 12 But athese, like unreasoning animals, bborn as creatures of instinct to be captured and killed, blaspheming where they have no knowledge, will in 1the destruction of those creatures also be destroyed, 13 suffering unrighteousness as athe wages of their unrighteousness, considering it a pleasure to brevel in the cdaytime—they are stains and blemishes, breveling in their 1deceptions, as they dfeast with you, 14 having eyes full of adultery and unceasing sin, aenticing bunstable souls, having a heart trained in cgreed—they are daccursed children. 15 Forsaking athe right way, they have gone astray, having followed bthe way of Balaam, the son of Beor, who loved cthe wages of unrighteousness, 16 but he received a rebuke for his own lawlessness, afor a mute donkey, speaking out with a voice of a man, restrained the madness of the prophet.
17 These are asprings without water and mists driven by a storm, bfor whom the 1black darkness has been kept.
18 For speaking out aarrogant words of bvanity, they centice by dsensual lusts of the flesh, those who barely eescape from the ones who conducted themselves in error, 19 promising them freedom while they themselves are slaves of corruption; for aby what a man is overcome, by this he is enslaved. 20 For if they are overcome, having both aescaped the defilements of the world by bthe knowledge of the cLord and Savior Jesus Christ and having again been dentangled in them, then ethe last state has become worse for them than the first. 21 aFor it would be better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to turn away from bthe holy commandment chanded on to them. 22 The 1message of the true proverb has happened to them, “aA dog returns to its own vomit,” and, “A sow, after washing, returns to wallowing in the mire.”
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