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2 Peter 2

1But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive factions, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing swift destruction on themselves. 2Many will follow their shameless ways, and because of them the way of truth will be slandered. 3In greed they will exploit you with fabricated words. Their judgment from long ago is not idle, and their destruction does not doze.

4For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into Tartarus and handed them over to chains of gloom, kept for judgment; 5and did not spare the ancient world, but guarded Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven others, when he brought a flood on the world of the ungodly; 6and reduced the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes and condemned them to destruction, making them an example to the ungodly of things to come; 7and rescued righteous Lot, worn down by the shameless conduct of the lawless—8for that righteous man, living among them, tormented his righteous soul day after day over the lawless deeds he saw and heard—9then the Lord knows how to rescue the devout from trial and keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment, 10especially those who go after flesh in a desire for defilement and despise lordship.

Bold and self-willed, they do not tremble when slandering glorious ones, 11whereas angels, greater in strength and power, do not bring a slanderous judgment against them. 12But these people, like irrational animals born as creatures of instinct to be caught and destroyed, slander things they do not understand and will also be destroyed in their destruction, 13suffering wrong as the wages of wrongdoing. They consider revelry in daylight a pleasure. Spots and blemishes, they revel in their deceptions while feasting with you. 14Their eyes are full of an adulteress and never stop sinning; they entice unstable souls. They have hearts trained in greed—children of a curse! 15Leaving the straight way, they went astray, following the way of Balaam son of Bosor, who loved the wages of wrongdoing 16but received a rebuke for his own lawbreaking: a speechless donkey spoke with a human voice and restrained the prophet's madness.

17These people are waterless springs and mists driven by a storm, for whom the gloom of darkness has been kept. 18For, speaking inflated words of emptiness, they entice through fleshly desires and shameless acts those who are barely escaping from people who live in error. 19They promise them freedom while they themselves are slaves of corruption. For whatever has overcome someone has also enslaved that person. 20For if, after escaping the world's defilements through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, their last state has become worse than their first. 21For it would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness than, after knowing it, to turn back from the holy commandment handed on to them. 22What the true proverb says has happened to them: “A dog returning to its own vomit,” and “A washed sow returning to wallow in mud.”

Translation notes 6

2:1–3 — Factions and purchase. The term behind “factions” can also designate sects or their divisive teachings, hence the familiar “heresies.” The text says the Master bought the people who deny him; no qualification such as “seemed to buy” is inserted. Destruction and judgment remain emphatic and repeated.

2:4 — Tartarus. Greek uses a verb meaning to cast into Tartarus. The NET Bible and KJV render it with “hell.” This draft retains the distinctive name rather than treating it as the same word as Gehenna or Hades. Here it is the gloomy confinement of sinful angels awaiting judgment. The base reads “chains”; another textual reading means pits or dungeons.

2:5–9 — Judgment and rescue. “With seven others” expresses the Greek description of Noah as eighth. At verse 6 the base describes an example to the ungodly of coming things; another reading describes an example to people who would live ungodly lives. “Under punishment” follows the present participle in verse 9; “for punishment” is another interpretation. The repeated descriptions of Lot as righteous are retained.

2:10–13 — Glorious ones and destruction. “Lordship” can mean authority or dominion; the precise referent is unstated. The “glorious ones” are probably heavenly beings, but their identity and the referent of “them” remain debated. The Greek base lacks “before the Lord” in verse 11. Verse 12's repeated destruction language is deliberate. Verse 13 reads “suffering wrong” in the base; “receiving” is another textual reading. “Deceptions” also has the textual alternative “love feasts.”

2:14–16 — Adulteress and Balaam. Literally the eyes are full of “an adulteress,” picturing their sexual fixation, not identifying one particular woman. “Children of a curse” preserves the family idiom for people under a curse. “Bosor” follows the base; “Beor” is a textual alternative corresponding to the familiar name in Numbers 22. The donkey is literally a beast of burden.

2:17–22 — Escape and enslavement. Verse 18 follows the reading “barely escaping”; “really escaping” is a significant textual alternative. Verse 20 leaves “they” as written: teachers and those they entice are both relevant to the warning. Their earlier escape and knowledge are not qualified as merely apparent. The dog saying recalls Proverbs 26:11; the sow saying adds a parallel return to filth. “Returning” is supplied in the second saying to express the elliptical comparison.