1But false prophets also arose among the people, as false teachers will also be among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, denying even the Master who bought them, bringing on themselves swift destruction. 2Many will follow their immoral ways, and as a result, the way of the truth will be maligned. 3In covetousness they will exploit you with deceptive words: whose sentence now from of old does not linger, and their destruction is not asleep.

4For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them down to the lower parts of hell, and committed them to chains of darkness, to be reserved for judgment; 5and did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah with seven others, a proclaimer of righteousness, when he brought a flood on the world of the ungodly; 6and turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemned them to destruction, having made them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly; 7and delivered righteous Lot, who was very distressed by the lustful life of the wicked 8(for that righteous man dwelling among them, was tormented in his righteous soul from day to day with seeing and hearing lawless deeds): 9the Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptation and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment; 10but chiefly those who walk after the flesh in the lust of defilement, and despise authority. Daring, self-willed, they are not afraid to blaspheme the glories; 11whereas angels, though greater in might and power, do not bring a railing judgment against them before the Lord. 12But these, as unreasoning creatures, born natural animals to be taken and destroyed, speaking evil in matters about which they are ignorant, will in their destroying surely be destroyed, 13suffering the penalty as the wages of evil; people who count it pleasure to revel in the daytime, spots and blemishes, reveling in their deceit while they feast with you; 14having eyes full of adultery, and insatiable for sin, enticing unstable people, having a heart trained in greed. Children under a curse. 15Forsaking the right way they went astray, having followed the way of Balaam the son of Beor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness. 16But he was rebuked for his own transgression; a donkey that could not talk spoke with a human voice and stopped the irrationality of the prophet.

17These are wells without water, and mists driven by a storm; for whom the blackness of darkness has been reserved. 18For, uttering great swelling words of emptiness, they entice in the lusts of the flesh, by licentiousness, those who actually escape from those who live in error; 19promising them liberty, while they themselves are slaves of corruption; for a person is brought into bondage by whoever overcomes him. 20For if, after they have escaped the defilement of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in it and overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first. 21For it would be better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after knowing it, to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them. 22It has happened to them according to the true proverb, "The dog turns to his own vomit again," and "the sow that has washed to wallowing in the mire."