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The Second Letter of Peter 2

2 But people who falsely proclaimed messages from God were also amidst the Israelites. In the same way there will also be people who teach false messages amidst you. They will introduce opinions that will result in eternal condemnation. They will even reject their owner, Jesus, who redeemed them. As a result of this, God will soon condemn them for eternity. 2 And many people will do the same unrestrained immoral acts as these false teachers. Because of these false teachers, unbelievers will speak evil of Christianity. 3 And due to their greedy hearts, these false teachers will make a profit off of you by telling you lies. God condemned them a long time ago, and God will certainly destroy them.

4 This judgment is certain because God did not let the angels who acted sinfully remain unpunished. On the contrary, he threw them into hell where they are chained in darkness. God imprisoned these sinful angels there and is holding them there in order to judge them. 5 And God did not let the people who lived in the world long ago remain unpunished. However, he preserved eight people, including Noah, who was a righteous herald, when he destroyed by a flood the ungodly people who lived in the world at that time. 6 And God condemned the cities called Sodom and Gomorrah to be destroyed by burning them completely to ashes. This resulted in God making those cities an example of what will happen to people who dishonor God. 7 And God rescued Lot, who was a righteous man. Lot was greatly distressed because of the unrestrained immoral acts of the people who acted lawlessly in Sodom. 8 (When he lived with those wicked people in Sodom, that righteous man Lot distressed himself every day by what he saw and heard. He did so because of the things people did that were against God’s law.) 9 Since these things are all true, then you can be sure that the Lord knows how to rescue people who honor him from being tried. And the Lord also knows how to keep those who do unrighteous deeds ready in order to punish them at the time when he judges. 10 And he will punish especially those who keep on doing what their sinful hearts want to do, which are things that make them displeasing to God. These people also scorn divine authority. How bold they are! They do whatever they wish! They are not even afraid to insult God’s glorious angels. 11 But God’s angels, even though they are much more powerful than these people, do not accuse glorious beings in an insulting manner in front of God! 12 However, these false teachers are like animals that cannot think rationally. According to the way they naturally behave, they were born so that others may capture and destroy them. They say bad things about things they do not even know. God will surely destroy them when it is time for their destruction. 13 These false teachers suffer harm as the proper punishment for their harmful deeds. They are pleased to party in an immoral manner even during the daytime. Like ugly stains on one’s clothing, they are disgraceful to your gatherings! They even celebrate their deceptive deeds while eating a meal with you! 14 They constantly want to have immoral sexual relations with every woman they see. They cannot stop sinning. They lure spiritually weak people into sin. As athletes train for sports, these false teachers train themselves to be greedy. God has cursed them! 15 They refuse to live the way God wants them to. They are acting wickedly. They are imitating what Balaam, the son of Bosor, did long ago. He loved to receive money as payment for wicked deeds. 16 However, God rebuked him for his wicked deed against Israel. And even though donkeys do not speak, God used Balaam’s donkey to speak to him with a human voice and stop his foolish action.

17 These false teachers are useless, like springs that do not give water. They are like clouds that the storm pushes away before they can give rain. God has reserved the darkness of hell for them. 18 This is true because they persuade people to sin who have recently become believers and stopped doing what wicked unbelievers do. These false teachers do this by speaking proud words that are not worth anything. They persuade these people to sin by doing whatever their sinful natures want to do. 19 They also do this by telling their listeners that they are free to do whatever they want while, at the same time, they themselves are controlled by their sinful desires that will destroy them. This is true because the thing that overpowers a person’s will takes control of that person. 20 And if they have stopped doing the things that defile sinful human society by knowing the one who rules over us and saves us, Jesus the Messiah, but those defiling things began to control them again, then their situation is worse now than it was at first. 21 This is because it would have been better for them if they had never learned how to live in the way that pleases God than to learn this way and reject God’s holy commands that the apostles taught them. 22 This is a true proverb that describes what has happened to these false teachers: “They are like dogs that return to eat their own vomit,” and, “They are like pigs that have washed themselves and then roll again in the mud.”

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