God’s Judgment on the Ungodly

(2 Peter 3:1–7)

3 Beloved, although I made every effort to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt it necessary to write and urge you to contend earnestly for the faith entrusted once for all to the saints. 4 For certain men have crept in among you unnoticed—ungodly ones who were designated long ago for condemnation. They turn the grace of our God into a license for immorality, and they deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.

5 Although you are fully aware of this, I want to remind you that after Jesus [fn] had delivered His people out of the land of Egypt, He destroyed those who did not believe. 6 And the angels who did not stay within their own domain but abandoned their proper dwelling—these He has kept in eternal chains under darkness, bound for judgment on that great day. 7 In like manner, Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, who indulged in sexual immorality and pursued strange flesh, are on display as an example of those who sustain the punishment of eternal fire.

8 Yet in the same way these dreamers defile their bodies, reject authority, and slander glorious beings. 9 But even the archangel Michael, when he disputed with the devil over the body of Moses, did not presume to bring a slanderous charge against him, but said, “The Lord rebuke you!”[fn] 10 These men, however, slander what they do not understand, and like irrational animals, they will be destroyed by the things they do instinctively. 11 Woe to them! They have traveled the path of Cain; they have rushed headlong into the error of Balaam; they have perished in Korah’s rebellion.

12 These men are hidden reefs [fn] in your love feasts, shamelessly feasting with you but shepherding only themselves. They are clouds without water, carried along by the wind; fruitless trees in autumn, twice dead after being uprooted. 13 They are wild waves of the sea, foaming up their own shame; wandering stars, for whom blackest darkness has been reserved forever.

14 Enoch, the seventh from Adam, also prophesied about them:

“Behold, the Lord is coming

with myriads of His holy ones

15 to execute judgment on everyone,

and to convict all the ungodly

of every ungodly act of wickedness

and every harsh word spoken against Him by ungodly sinners.”[fn]

16 These men are discontented grumblers, following after their own lusts; their mouths spew arrogance; they flatter others for their own advantage.