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there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the Lord who bought them—and bringing on themselves swift destruction. 2 Many will follow their destructive ways, and the way of truth will be brought into disrepute because of them. 3 And in their greed they will exploit you with deceptive words. Their condemnation, pronounced against them long ago, has not been idle, and their destruction has not been sleeping.
4 For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them in chains into the deep abyss and gloomy darkness, to be held for judgment; 5 and if He did not spare the ancient world, but protected Noah, a preacher of righteousness, with seven others, when He brought a flood of water on the world of the ungodly; 6 and if He condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, and He them into ashes and made an example of them to those who afterward were going to be ungodly; 7 and if He rescued Lot, a righteous man, who was distressed by the filthy lives of the lawless 8 (for that righteous man, living among them day after day, was tormented in his righteous soul by the lawless deeds he saw and heard)— 9 then the Lord knows how to deliver the righteous from trials, and to reserve the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment. 10 This is especially true of those who follow the corrupting desires of their flesh in depraved lust and despise authority.
Bold and arrogant, they are not afraid to slander the glorious ones; 11 yet even angels, although they are greater in might and power, do not bring slanderous accusations against them before the Lord. 12 But these people are like irrational animals born only to be caught and destroyed. They speak blasphemies about things they do not understand, and they too will perish in their own destruction.
13 They will suffer the penalty for unrighteousness. They count it a pleasure to carouse in the daytime. They are spots and blemishes, revelling in their own deceptions as they feast with you. 14 They have eyes full of adultery that are always looking for sin. They seduce unstable people and have hearts trained in greed. They are accursed children! 15 They have forsaken the straight path and wandered off to follow the way of Balaam son of Beor, who loved the wages of wickedness. 16 But he was rebuked for his iniquity: A donkey—a beast without speech—spoke with a man’s voice and restrained the prophet’s madness.
17 These men are springs without water and mists driven by a storm; for them the deepest darkness has been reserved. 18 For they utter boastful, empty words, and by appealing to the lustful desires of the flesh, they entice people who have barely escaped from those who live in error. 19 They promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption; for a man is a slave to whatever has mastered him. 20 For if they have escaped from the world’s corruptions through the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and become entangled again in these things and are defeated, they are worse off in the end than they were at the beginning. 21 For it would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than to have known it and then turned back from the holy command that was delivered to them. 22 It has happened to them according to the true proverb: “The dog returns to its own vomit”, and, “A sow that has been washed only goes back to wallow again in the mud”.