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¹ But there arose false prophets also among the people, as among you also there shall be false teachers, who shall secretly bring in destructive heresies, denying even the Master that bought them, bringing on themselves swift destruction.² And many shall follow their sexual immorality; by reason of whom the way of the truth shall be evil spoken of.

³ And in greed they shall with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose sentence now from of old does not linger, and their destruction does not slumber.⁴ For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them down to Tartarus, and committed them to chains of darkness, to be reserved to judgment;⁵ and did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah with seven others, a preacher of righteousness, when he brought a flood on the world of the ungodly;⁶ and turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes condemned them with an overthrow, having made them an example to those that should live ungodly;

⁷ and delivered righteous Lot, very distressed by the sexual immorality of the wicked⁸ (for that righteous man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed [his] righteous soul from day to day with [their] lawless deeds):⁹ the Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptation, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment to the day of judgment;

¹⁰ but chiefly those that walk after the flesh in the desire of defilement, and despise dominion. Daring, self-willed, they do not tremble to rail at dignities:¹¹ whereas angels, though greater in might and power, do not bring a railing judgment against them before the Lord.¹² But these, as creatures without reason, born mere animals to be taken and destroyed, railing in matters whereof they are ignorant, shall in their destroying surely be destroyed,¹³ suffering wrong as the wages of wrong-doing; [men] that count it pleasure to revel in the day-time, spots and blemishes, reveling in their deceptions while they feast with you;¹⁴ having eyes full of adultery, and that can't cease from sin; enticing unstedfast souls; having a heart exercised in greed; sons of cursing;¹⁵ forsaking the right way, they went astray, having followed the way of Balaam the [son] of Bosor, who loved the wages of wrong-doing;¹⁶ but he was rebuked for his own transgression: a mute donkey spoke with man's voice and stayed the madness of the prophet.¹⁷ These are springs without water, and mists driven by a storm; for whom the blackness of darkness has been reserved.¹⁸ For, uttering great swelling [words] of vanity, they entice in the desires of the flesh, by sexual immorality, those who are just escaping from the ones that live in error;¹⁹ promising them liberty, while they themselves are slaves of corruption; for to whom a man is overcome, to this one he has been made a slave.²⁰ For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, they are again entangled therein and overcome, the last state has become worse with them than the first.²¹ For it were 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.²² It has happened to them according to the true proverb, The dog turning to his own vomit again, and the sow that had washed to wallowing in the mire.