2 Peter 2:4-22 ▼

4 For, if God spared not angels that sinned, but, hurling them down to Hell, delivered them up to pits of darkness, kept for judgment;

5 and spared not the old world; but preserved Noah, an eighth person , a preacher of righteousness, bringing a flood upon a world of ungodly people ;

6 and, turning to ashes the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, condemned them by an overthrow, having made them an example to those who would live ungodly;

7 and delivered righteous Lot, distressed by the conduct of those who were impious in lasciviousness,

8 (for this righteous man, dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, was torturing his righteous soul from day to day with their lawless deeds):

9 the Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptation, and to keep the unrighteous enduring punishment unto the day of judgment;

10 but especially those who walk after the flesh in a desire for pollution, and despise dominion; daring, self-willed, they tremble not, when railing at dignities;

11 whereas angels, though greater in might and power, bring not a railing judgment against them before the Lord.

12 But these, as irrational creatures, born naturally for capture and destruction, railing in matters of which they are ignorant, shall in their destruction be also destroyed,

13 suffering evil as wages of unrighteousness; accounting revelry in the daytime a pleasure; spots and blemishes; reveling in their deceivings, while feasting with you;

14 having eyes full of lustfulness, and that cannot cease from sin; enticing unstable souls; having a heart exercised in covetousness; children of a curse;

15 leaving the right way, they were led astray, having followed the way of Balaam, the son of Beor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness,

16 but had a rebuke for his own transgression; a dumb beast-of-burden, speaking in man's voice, forbade the prophet's madness.

17 These are fountains 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 desires of the flesh, by their lasciviousness, those just escaping from those who live in error;

19 promising them liberty, while they themselves are slaves of corruption; for by what one is overcome by this he has become enslaved.

20 For if, after having escaped the defilements of the world in a full knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, but, having again become entangled with these, they are overcome, the last state has become worse with them than the first.

21 For it were better for them not to have fully known the way of righteousness, than, having known it, to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them.

22 It has happened to them according to the true proverb, "A dog having returned to his own vomit"; and "A sow that was washed, to her wallowing in mire."