¹ But false prophets also developed among the people, as false teachers will also be among you, who will sneak in pernicious denominations, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction.

² And many will follow their wantonness, because of whom the way of the truth will be blasphemed.

³ And they will exploit you in greed with fabricated words, whose judgment is not idle for long, and their destruction will not slumber.

⁴ For if God did not spare agents who sinned, but delivered them up to chains of darkness, having been cast into hell being reserved for judgment,

⁵ and he did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, the eighth, a herald of righteousness, when he brought on a flood upon the world of the irreverent,

⁶ and he condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to destruction, being reduced to ashes, having made an example of men who were going to be irreverent,

⁷ and he rescued righteous Lot, being distressed by the conduct of the lawless in their licentiousness

⁸ (for that righteous man dwelling among them day after day, in the sight and hearing of their lawless deeds, it anguished his righteous soul),

⁹ the Lord knows how to rescue the pious out of temptation, and to hold in reserve unrighteous men being cut off for a day of judgment.

¹⁰ And especially those going rear of flesh in a degenerate lust, and who despise lordship. Reckless, self-willed men, they do not tremble when speaking evil of dignities.

¹¹ Whereas agents, being greater in might and power, do not bring a railing judgment against them before the Lord.

¹² But these men, like irrational beasts of nature, having been born for capture and destruction, speaking evil at which things they do not understand, will be destroyed in their corruption,

¹³ getting back a wage of unrighteousness. Men who consider soft living in the daytime to be pleasure, spots and blemishes reveling in their deceitfulness, feasting together with you,

¹⁴ having eyes full of adultery, and unceasing sin, enticing unstable souls, having a heart trained in greed, children of a curse,

¹⁵ having forsaken a straight path, they were led astray, men who followed the way of Balaam, son of Beor, who loved the wage of unrighteousness.

¹⁶ But he had a rebuke of his own lawbreaking. A mute donkey, uttering in a man's voice, restrained the madness of the prophet.

¹⁷ These men are waterless wells, and clouds driven by a fierce wind, for whom the gloom of darkness has been reserved into an age.

¹⁸ For, uttering swollen things of vanity, they entice (to sensuality by lusts of flesh) those who actually escaped from those who live in error,

¹⁹ promising them freedom, while they themselves are bondmen of corruption, for by what any man has been overcome, of this he has also been enslaved.

²⁰ For if, having escaped the defilements of the world by knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and, having been again entangled in these, they are overcome, the last things have become worse for them than the first.

²¹ For it were 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 But that of the true proverb has happened to them, The dog returning to his own vomit, and the sow that washed to wallowing in mire.