| 2 | 2 Peter | ||
| 1 | But Israel had false prophets as well as true; and you likewise will have false teachers among you. They will import disastrous heresies, disowning the very Master who bought them, and bringing swift disaster on their own heads. | False Prophets and Teachers 2Pe.2.1-22 | |
| 2 | They will gain many adherents to their dissolute practices, through whom the true way will be brought into disrepute. | ||
| 3 | In their greed for money they will trade on your credulity with sheer fabrications. But the judgement long decreed for them has not been idle; perdition waits for them with unsleeping eyes. | ||
| 4 | God did not spare the angels who sinned, but consigned them to the dark pits of hell, where they are reserved for judgement. | ||
| 5 | He did not spare the world of old (except for Noah, preacher of righteousness, whom he preserved with seven others), but brought the deluge upon that world of godless men. | ||
| 6 | The cities of Sodom and Gomorrah God burned to ashes, and condemned them to total destruction, making them an object-lesson for godless men in future days. | ||
| 7 | But he rescued Lot, who was a good man, shocked by the dissolute habits of the lawless society in which he lived; | ||
| 8 | day after day every sight, every sound, of their evil courses tortured that good man's heart. | ||
| 9 | Thus the Lord is well able to rescue the godly out of trials, and to reserve the wicked under punishment until the day of judgement. | ||
| 10 | Above all he will punish those who follow their abominable lusts. They flout authority; reckless and headstrong, they are not afraid to insult celestial beings, | ||
| 11 | whereas angels, for all their superior strength and might, employ no insults in seeking judgement against them before the Lord. | ||
| 12 | These men are like brute beasts, born in the course of nature to be caught and killed. They pour abuse upon things they do not understand; like the beasts they will perish, | ||
| 13 | suffering hurt for the hurt they have inflicted. To carouse in broad daylight is their idea of pleasure; while they sit with you at table they are an ugly blot on your company, because they revel in their own deceptions. | ||
| 14 | They have eyes for nothing but women, eyes never at rest from sin. They lure the unstable to their ruin; past masters in mercenary greed, God's curse is on them! | ||
| 15 | They have abandoned the straight road and lost their way. They have followed in the steps of Balaam son of Beor, who consented to take pay for doing wrong, | ||
| 16 | but had his offence brought home to him when the dumb beast spoke with a human voice and put a stop to the prophet's madness. | ||
| 17 | These men are springs that give no water, mists driven by a storm; the place reserved for them is blackest darkness. | ||
| 18 | They utter big, empty words, and make of sensual lusts and debauchery a bait to catch those who have barely begun to escape from their heathen environment. | ||
| 19 | They promise them freedom, but are themselves slaves of corruption; for a man is the slave of whatever has mastered him. | ||
| 20 | They had once escaped the world's defilements through the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ; yet if they have entangled themselves in these all over again, and are mastered by them, their plight in the end is worse than before. | ||
| 21 | How much better never to have known the right way, than, having known it, to turn back and abandon the sacred commandments delivered to them! | ||
| 22 | For them the proverb has proved true: 'The dog returns to its own vomit', and, 'The sow after a wash rolls in the mud again.' | - The dog turns back to his own vomit 2Pe.2.22 - Pr.26.11 | |
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