1But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you: which privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that hath bought them, and bring upon themselves swift damnation.
2And many shall follow their destructions, by whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of.
3And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you, whose condemnation long since resteth not, and their destruction slumbereth not.
4For if God spared not the Angels that had sinned, but cast them down into hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be kept unto damnation:
5Neither hath spared the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person a preacher of righteousness, and brought in the Flood upon the world of the ungodly,
6And turned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemned them and overthrew them, and made them an ensample unto them that after should live ungodly,
7And delivered just Lot vexed with the uncleanly conversation of the wicked:
8(For he being righteous, and dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds.)
9The Lord knoweth to deliver the godly out of tentation, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment under punishment:
10And chiefly them that walk after the flesh, in the lust of uncleanness, and despise government, which are bold, and stand in their own conceit, and fear not to speak evil of them that are in dignity.
11Whereas the Angels which are greater both in power and might, give not railing judgment against them before the Lord.
12But these as natural brute beasts, led with sensuality and made to be taken, and destroyed, speak evil of those things which they know not, and shall perish through their own corruption.
13And shall receive the wages of unrighteousness, as they which count it pleasure daily to live deliciously. Spots they are and blots, delighting themselves in their deceivings, in feasting with you.
14Having eyes full of adultery, and that cannot cease to sin, beguiling unstable souls, they have hearts exercised with covetousness, they are the children of curse:
15Which forsaking the right way, have gone astray following the way of Balaam, the son of Beor, which loved the wages of unrighteousness.
16But he was rebuked for his iniquity: for the dumb beast speaking with man’s voice forbade the foolishness of the Prophet.
17These are wells without water, and clouds carried about with a tempest, to whom the black darkness is reserved forever.
18For in speaking swelling words of vanity, they beguile with wantonness through the lusts of the flesh them that were clean escaped from them which are wrapped in error,
19Promising unto them liberty, and are themselves the servants of corruption: for of whomsoever a man is overcome, even unto the same is he in bondage.
20For if they, after they have escaped from the filthiness of the world, through the acknowledging of the Lord, and of the Savior Jesus Christ, are yet tangled again therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning.
21For it had been better for them not to have acknowledged the way of righteousness, than after they have acknowledged it, to turn from the holy commandment given unto them.
22But it is come unto them according to the true proverb, The dog is returned to his own vomit: and the sow that was washed, to the wallowing in the mire.