But there were false prophets also among the people, as there shall be also false teachers among you, such as shall bring in by-the-bye sects of perdition, denying even the Sovereign Master that bought them, bringing on themselves swift perdition;
and many shall follow their dissolutenesses; because of whom the way of the truth shall be blasphemed.
And in covetousness with feigned words, they shall make merchandise of you: for whom judgment from of old is not idle, and their perdition slumbereth not.
For if God spared not angels when they sinned, but cast them down to lowest hell and gave them up to chains of gloom reserved for judgment,
and spared not an ancient world but preserved Noah an eighth, a preacher of righteousness, having brought a flood upon a world of ungodly ones;
and reducing to ashes [the] cities of Sodom and Gomorrha, he condemned [them] with overthrow, having set an example to those that should live ungodlily,
and rescued righteous Lot, distressed by the behaviour of those abandoned in licentiousness;
for the righteous [man] dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing was tormenting a righteous soul day after day with lawless works,
[the] Lord knoweth to deliver the godly out of trial, and to keep unjust [men] for judgment-day to be punished;
and especially those that walk after flesh in lust of uncleanness, and despise lordship. Daring, self-willed, they tremble not speaking railingly of dignities,
when angels, being greater in might and power, bring not against them before [the] Lord a railing charge.
But these, as irrational animals born by nature for capture and destruction, speaking evil in what things they are ignorant, shall also perish in their corruption,
receiving as they shall wages of unrighteousness, accounting [their] ephemeral luxury pleasure; spots and blemishes, luxuriating in their love feasts, feasting with you;
having eyes full of an adulteress and without cessation from sin; setting baits for unstable souls; having a heart practiced in covetousness, children of curse;
abandoning as they did a straight way, they went astray, following out in the way of Balaam [son] of Beor, who loved wages of unrighteousness,
but had reproof of his own iniquity; a dumb beast of burden speaking with man’s voice forbade the madness of the prophet.
These are springs without water, and mists driven by storm, to whom the gloom of darkness is reserved.
For uttering overswellings of vanity, they allure in lusts of the flesh, by dissolutenesses, those that are just escaping from them that walk in error,
promising them liberty while they themselves are slaves of corruption; for by whom a man is worsted, by him is he also held in bondage.
For if after having escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, but again entangled and worsted thereby, the last for them is become worse than the first.
For it were better for them not to have known well the way of righteousness than knowing well to have turned back from the holy commandment delivered to them.
[But] there hath happened to them the [saying] of the true proverb, A dog returned to his own vomit, and A sow washed into rolling in mire.