| NET Bible | New Living Translation |
| 1But false prophets arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. These false teachers will infiltrate your midst with destructive heresies, even to the point of denying the Master who bought them. As a result, they will bring swift destruction on themselves. | 1But there were also false prophets in Israel, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will cleverly teach destructive heresies and even deny the Master who bought them. In this way, they will bring sudden destruction on themselves. |
| 2And many will follow their debauched lifestyles. Because of these false teachers, the way of truth will be slandered. | 2Many will follow their evil teaching and shameful immorality. And because of these teachers, the way of truth will be slandered. |
| 3And in their greed they will exploit you with deceptive words. Their condemnation pronounced long ago is not sitting idly by; their destruction is not asleep. | 3In their greed they will make up clever lies to get hold of your money. But God condemned them long ago, and their destruction will not be delayed. |
| 4For if God did not spare the angels who sinned, but threw them into hell and locked them up in chains in utter darkness, to be kept until the judgment, | 4For God did not spare even the angels who sinned. He threw them into hell, in gloomy pits of darkness, where they are being held until the day of judgment. |
| 5and if he did not spare the ancient world, but did protect Noah, a herald of righteousness, along with seven others, when God brought a flood on an ungodly world, | 5And God did not spare the ancient world—except for Noah and the seven others in his family. Noah warned the world of God’s righteous judgment. So God protected Noah when he destroyed the world of ungodly people with a vast flood. |
| 6and if he turned to ashes the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah when he condemned them to destruction, having appointed them to serve as an example to future generations of the ungodly, | 6Later, God condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah and turned them into heaps of ashes. He made them an example of what will happen to ungodly people. |
| 7and if he rescued Lot, a righteous man in anguish over the debauched lifestyle of lawless men, | 7But God also rescued Lot out of Sodom because he was a righteous man who was sick of the shameful immorality of the wicked people around him. |
| 8(for while he lived among them day after day, that righteous man was tormented in his righteous soul by the lawless deeds he saw and heard) | 8Yes, Lot was a righteous man who was tormented in his soul by the wickedness he saw and heard day after day. |
| 9--if so, then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from their trials, and to reserve the unrighteous for punishment at the day of judgment, | 9So you see, the Lord knows how to rescue godly people from their trials, even while keeping the wicked under punishment until the day of final judgment. |
| 10especially those who indulge their fleshly desires and who despise authority. Brazen and insolent, they are not afraid to insult the glorious ones, | 10He is especially hard on those who follow their own twisted sexual desire, and who despise authority. These people are proud and arrogant, daring even to scoff at supernatural beings without so much as trembling. |
| 11yet even angels, who are much more powerful, do not bring a slanderous judgment against them before the Lord. | 11But the angels, who are far greater in power and strength, do not dare to bring from the Lord a charge of blasphemy against those supernatural beings. |
| 12But these men, like irrational animals--creatures of instinct, born to be caught and destroyed--do not understand whom they are insulting, and consequently in their destruction they will be destroyed, | 12These false teachers are like unthinking animals, creatures of instinct, born to be caught and destroyed. They scoff at things they do not understand, and like animals, they will be destroyed. |
| 13suffering harm as the wages for their harmful ways. By considering it a pleasure to carouse in broad daylight, they are stains and blemishes, indulging in their deceitful pleasures when they feast together with you. | 13Their destruction is their reward for the harm they have done. They love to indulge in evil pleasures in broad daylight. They are a disgrace and a stain among you. They delight in deception even as they eat with you in your fellowship meals. |
| 14Their eyes, full of adultery, never stop sinning; they entice unstable people. They have trained their hearts for greed, these cursed children! | 14They commit adultery with their eyes, and their desire for sin is never satisfied. They lure unstable people into sin, and they are well trained in greed. They live under God’s curse. |
| 15By forsaking the right path they have gone astray, because they followed the way of Balaam son of Bosor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness, | 15They have wandered off the right road and followed the footsteps of Balaam son of Beor, who loved to earn money by doing wrong. |
| 16yet was rebuked for his own transgression (a dumb donkey, speaking with a human voice, restrained the prophet's madness). | 16But Balaam was stopped from his mad course when his donkey rebuked him with a human voice. |
| 17These men are waterless springs and mists driven by a storm, for whom the utter depths of darkness have been reserved. | 17These people are as useless as dried-up springs or as mist blown away by the wind. They are doomed to blackest darkness. |
| 18For by speaking high-sounding but empty words they are able to entice, with fleshly desires and with debauchery, people who have just escaped from those who reside in error. | 18They brag about themselves with empty, foolish boasting. With an appeal to twisted sexual desires, they lure back into sin those who have barely escaped from a lifestyle of deception. |
| 19Although these false teachers promise such people freedom, they themselves are enslaved to immorality. For whatever a person succumbs to, to that he is enslaved. | 19They promise freedom, but they themselves are slaves of sin and corruption. For you are a slave to whatever controls you. |
| 20For if after they have escaped the filthy things of the world through the rich knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they again get entangled in them and succumb to them, their last state has become worse for them than their first. | 20And when people escape from the wickedness of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and then get tangled up and enslaved by sin again, they are worse off than before. |
| 21For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than, having known it, to turn back from the holy commandment that had been delivered to them. | 21It would be better if they had never known the way to righteousness than to know it and then reject the command they were given to live a holy life. |
| 22They are illustrations of this true proverb: "A dog returns to its own vomit," and "A sow, after washing herself, wallows in the mire." | 22They prove the truth of this proverb: “A dog returns to its vomit.” And another says, “A washed pig returns to the mud.” |
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