2 Peter 2
2
The Condemnation of the False Prophets and False Teachers
1 But there were also false prophets among the people, as there will also be false teachers among you, who will surreptitiously introduce destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing swift destruction upon themselves. 2 And many will follow their acts of sensuality, and because of them* the way of truth will be blasphemed. 3 And in greed, they will exploit you with fabricated words, whose judgment from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not sleeping.
4 For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into Tartarus and delivered them to chains of gloomy darkness, being kept for judgment; 5 and did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a preacher 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 to destruction by reducing them to ashes, having made them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly; 7 and rescued righteous Lot, greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of the lawless 8 (for that righteous man, living among them day after day, was tormenting his righteous soul by seeing and hearing their lawless deeds); 9 then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trial, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment, 10 and especially those who go after the flesh in the lust of defilement and despise authority.
Bold and self-pleasing, they do not tremble as they speak abusively against the glorious ones, 11 whereas angels, who are greater in strength and power, do not bring against them an abusive judgment before the Lord. 12 But these, like irrational animals, born as creatures of instincts for capture and destruction, speaking evil of matters they do not understand, will in the destruction of those creatures also be destroyed,* 13 suffering wrong as the payment for their wrongdoing. Considering luxurious indulgence in the daytime a pleasure, they are stains and blemishes, revelling in their deceptions while feasting with you, 14 having eyes full of lust for* an adulteress and unceasing from sin, enticing unstable souls, having a heart trained for greed. Accursed children!* 15 Abandoning the straight way, they have gone astray, because they followed the way of Balaam, the son of Bosor,* who loved the payment of unrighteousness; 16 but he received a reproof for his own lawlessness: A speechless donkey, speaking with a man’s voice, restrained the madness of the prophet.
17 These are waterless springs and mists driven by a storm, for whom the gloom of darkness has been kept.* 18 For, uttering inflated words of vanity, they entice through passions of the flesh, by sensuality, those who barely escape from those who live in error, 19 promising them liberty while they themselves are slaves of corruption. For by what someone is defeated, by that he is enslaved.* 20 For if, having escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and they are again entangled in these things and succumb to them, the last state has become worse for them than the first. 21 For it would be 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 The statement of the true proverb has happened to them: “A dog returns to its own vomit,” and “A sow, after washing herself, to wallowing in the mire.”*
Notes
2 Greek whom
6 The word if, which introduces the conditional clause, is supplied to the text based on context for the sake of clarity
12 Greek will in their destruction also be destroyed
14 The phrase lust for is supplied to the text based on context for the sake of clarity
14 Greek children of a curse
15 Greek Balaam, of Bosor
17 Some ancient manuscripts read for whom the gloom of darkness has forever been kept to harmonise the reading with a parallel in Jude 13
19 Some ancient manuscripts expand the text to read by that he is also enslaved
22 Quoted from Prov. 26:11
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2 Peter 2: AFINTLIT
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Copyright © 2026 Michael Adeyemi Adegbola. This Scripture text is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-SA 4.0).
