1 B ut there were false teachers among the people. And there will be false teachers among you also. These people will work in secret ways to bring false teaching to you. They will turn against Christ Who bought them with His blood. They bring fast death on themselves.

But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will also be false teachers among you, who will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing swift destruction upon themselves.

2 M any people will follow their wrong ways. Because of what they do, people will speak bad things against the way of truth.

Many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of the truth will be maligned;

3 T hey will tell lies and false stories so they can use you to get things for themselves. But God judged them long ago and their death is on the way.

and in their greed they will exploit you with false words; their judgment from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep.

4 G od did not hold back from punishing the angels who sinned, but sent them down to hell. They are to be kept there in the deep hole of darkness until they stand before Him Who judges them.

For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to pits of darkness, reserved for judgment;

5 G od did not hold back from punishing the people of the world who sinned long ago. He brought the flood on the world of sinners. But Noah was a preacher of right living. He and his family of seven were the only ones God saved.

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 G od said that the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah were guilty, and He destroyed them with fire. This was to show people who did not worship God what would happen to them.

and if He condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to destruction by reducing them to ashes, having made them an example to those who would live ungodly lives thereafter;

7 L ot was taken away from Sodom because he was right with God. He had been troubled by the sins that bad men did in wild living.

and if He rescued righteous Lot, oppressed by the sensual conduct of unprincipled men

8 H e saw and heard how the people around him broke the Law. Everyday his own soul which was right with God was troubled because of their sinful ways.

(for by what he saw and heard that righteous man, while living among them, felt his righteous soul tormented day after day by their lawless deeds),

9 B ut the Lord knows how to help men who are right with God when they are tempted. He also knows how to keep the sinners suffering for their wrong-doing until the day they stand before God Who will judge them.

then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from temptation, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment,

10 T his is true about those who keep on wanting to please their own bodies in sinful desires and those who will not obey laws. They want to please themselves and are not afraid when they laugh and say bad things about the powers in heaven.

and especially those who indulge the flesh in its corrupt desires and despise authority. Daring, self-willed, they do not tremble when they revile angelic majesties,

11 A ngels are greater in strength and power than they. But angels do not speak against these powers before the Lord.

whereas angels who are greater in might and power do not bring a reviling judgment against them before the Lord.

12 M en like this are like animals who are not able to think but are born to be caught and killed. They speak bad words against that which they do not understand. They will die in their own sinful ways.

But these, like unreasoning animals, born as creatures of instinct to be captured and killed, reviling where they have no knowledge, will in the destruction of those creatures also be destroyed,

13 T his is the pay they will suffer for their sinful lives. They are not ashamed when they sin in the daylight. They are sores and dirty spots among you while they eat and drink big meals with you.

suffering wrong as the wages of doing wrong. They count it a pleasure to revel in the daytime. They are stains and blemishes, reveling in their deceptions, as they carouse with you,

14 T heir eyes are full of sex sins. They never have enough sin. They get weak people to go along with them. Their hearts are always wanting something. They are people who will end up in hell because

having eyes full of adultery that never cease from sin, enticing unstable souls, having a heart trained in greed, accursed children;

15 t hey have left the right way and have gone the wrong way. They have followed the way of Balaam, who was the son of Beor. He loved the money he got for his sin.

forsaking the right way, they have gone astray, having followed the way of Balaam, the son of Beor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness;

16 B ut he was stopped in his sin. A donkey spoke to him with a man’s voice. It stopped this early preacher from going on in his crazy way.

but he received a rebuke for his own transgression, for a mute donkey, speaking with a voice of a man, restrained the madness of the prophet.

17 S uch people are like wells without water. They are like clouds before a storm. The darkest place below has been kept for them.

These are springs without water and mists driven by a storm, for whom the black darkness has been reserved.

18 T hey speak big-sounding words which show they are proud. They get men who are trying to keep away from sinful men to give in to the sinful desires of the flesh.

For speaking out arrogant words of vanity they entice by fleshly desires, by sensuality, those who barely escape from the ones who live in error,

19 T hey promise that these men will be free. But they themselves are chained to sin. For a man is chained to anything that has power over him.

promising them freedom while they themselves are slaves of corruption; for by what a man is overcome, by this he is enslaved.

20 T here are men who have been made free from the sins of the world by learning to know the Lord Jesus Christ, the One Who saves. But if they do these sins again, and are not able to keep from doing them, they are worse than they were before.

For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world by the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and are overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first.

21 A fter knowing the holy Law that was given to them, they turned from it. It would have been better for them if they had not known how to be right with God.

For it would be better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to turn away from the holy commandment handed on to them.

22 T hey are like the wise saying, “A dog turns back to what he has thrown up.” And, “A pig that has been washed goes back to roll in the mud.”

It has happened to them according to the true proverb, “ A dog returns to its own vomit,” and, “A sow, after washing, returns to wallowing in the mire.”