False Teachers Will Be Destroyed

¹But there were also false prophets among the people. In the same way, there will be false teachers among you. They’ll secretly bring in wrong teachings that can destroy you. They’ll even deny the Lord and Master who died to pay for their sins. So they will quickly destroy themselves.

²But many people will do the same wrong things that the false teachers do, and this will cause people to think badly about the way of truth.

³These teachers will be so greedy that they’ll make up stories to take advantage of you. But they’ve been under a sentence of death for a long time. Their destruction has not been sleeping.

⁴God didn’t spare the angels when they sinned. Instead, he sent them to hell and chained them up in dark prisons. He’s holding them there until the day of judgment.

⁵God didn’t spare the world’s ungodly people long ago. He brought the flood on them. But Noah preached about the right way to live, and God kept him safe along with seven other people.

⁶God judged the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. He burned them to ashes to make them an example of what’s going to happen to ungodly people. But

⁷God saved Lot, a man who did what was right. Lot was shocked by the evil conduct of those people who didn’t obey God’s laws.

⁸That good man lived among them day after day, and he saw and heard the evil things they were doing as they broke God’s laws. Lot’s godly spirit was deeply troubled.

⁹Since all of this is true, then the Lord knows how to save godly people and keep them safe in times of testing. But he also knows how to keep ungodly people under guard until the day they will be judged and punished.

¹⁰Most of all, this is true of people who are corrupted by their wrong desires and hate to be under authority.

People like that are cocky and arrogant. They’re not afraid even to insult heavenly beings.

¹¹Now angels are stronger and more powerful than these people, but even angels don’t insult heavenly beings when they bring judgment on them from the Lord.

¹²But these people say insulting things even when they don’t know what they’re talking about. They’re like wild animals that can’t think and just live by instinct, that are born only to be caught and destroyed. These people will die like animals too.

¹³They’ll be paid back with harm for all the harm they’ve done. Their idea of a good time is a wild party in the middle of the day. They’re like dirty spots and stains. They enjoy their sinful pleasures even while they’re eating with you.

¹⁴They stare at women who are not their wives and want to sleep with them. They never stop sinning. They trap people who aren’t firm in their faith. They’re experts in being greedy. But they’re under a curse.

¹⁵They’ve left God’s way and wandered off. They follow the way of Balaam, son of Beor, who did wrong just to get money.

¹⁶But a donkey corrected him for what he was doing. Animals can’t speak, but in this case a donkey spoke with a human voice to stop the prophet from doing something crazy.

¹⁷These people are like springs without water and mists driven by a storm. The blackest darkness is reserved for them.

¹⁸They speak empty, bragging words. By appealing to lust and desire, they tempt new believers who are just escaping from others who are living wrong.

¹⁹They promise to give them freedom, but they themselves are slaves to depravity. That’s because “people are slaves to anything that controls them.”

²⁰They may have escaped from the corruption of the world, and they may have come to know our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. But if they get tangled up again in sin, and it becomes their master, then they’re worse off at the end than they were at the beginning.

²¹It would have been better for them not to know the way of godliness than to know it but then turn their backs on the sacred command that was passed on to them.

²²What the proverbs say is true about them: “A dog returns to where it has thrown up” and “a pig that is washed goes back to rolling in the mud.”