¹ But false prophets were also among the people, as also false teachers will be among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, and denying the Master who has bought them, bringing swift destruction on themselves.

² And many will follow their destructive ways, by whom the way of truth will be evil spoken of.

³ And by covetousness, with well-turned words, they will use you for gain, for whom judgment of old does not linger, and their destruction does not slumber.

⁴ For if God did not spare sinning angels, but delivered them to chains of darkness, thrust down into Tartarus, having been kept to judgment;

⁵ and did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah the eighth, a herald of righteousness, bringing a flood on a world of ungodly ones;

⁶ and covering the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah with ashes, He condemned them with an overthrow, setting an example to men intending to live ungodly.

⁷ And He delivered righteous Lot, who had been oppressed by the behavior of the lawless in lustfulness.

⁸ For that righteous one living among them day after day, in seeing and in hearing, his righteous soul was tormented with their lawless deeds.

⁹ But the Lord knows to deliver the godly out of temptation, and to keep the unjust for a day of judgment, being punished,

¹⁰ and most of all those going after flesh in the lust of defilement, and despising rulership, darers, self-pleasing; they do not tremble at glories, speaking evil;

¹¹ where angels being greater in strength and power do not bring against them a reproaching charge before the Lord.

¹² But these as unreasoning natural beasts, having been born for capture and corruption, speaking evil in that of which they are ignorant, they shall utterly perish in their corruption,

¹³ being about to receive the wages of unrighteousness, having deemed indulgence in the day to be pleasure; spots and blemishes reveling in their deceits, feasting along with you,

¹⁴ having eyes full of an adulteress, and never ceasing from sin; alluring unsettled souls; having a heart busied with covetousness; cursed children;

¹⁵ forsaking a straight path, they went astray, following the way of Balaam the son of Beor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness,

¹⁶ but had reproof of his own transgression, the dumb ass speaking in a man's voice held back the madness of the prophet.

¹⁷ These are springs without water, clouds being driven by tempest, for whom the blackness of darkness is kept forever.

¹⁸ For speaking great swelling words of vanity, by the lusts of the flesh, by unbridled lusts, they allure those indeed escaping the ones living in error,

¹⁹ promising them freedom, though themselves being slaves of corruption; for by whom anyone has been overcome, even to this one he has been enslaved.

²⁰ For if by a full knowledge of the Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, they have escaped the defilements of the world, and again being entangled they have been overcome by these, then their last things have become worse than the first.

²¹ For it was better for them not to have fully known the way of righteousness, than fully knowing to turn from the holy commandment delivered to them.

²² But the word of the true proverb has happened to them: " The dog turning to his own vomit;" also, the washed sow to wallowing in mud. Prov. 26:11