Murdock - II Peter - 2

2:1  But in the world, there have been also false prophets, as there will likewise be false teachers among you, who will bring in destructive heresies, denying the Lord that bought them; thus bringing on themselves swift destruction.

2:2  And many will go after their profaneness; on account of whom, the way of truth will be reproached.

2:3  And, in the cupidity of raving words, they will make merchandise of you: whose judgment, of a long time, is not idle; and their destruction slumbereth not.

2:4  For, if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to the infernal regions in chains of darkness, and delivered them up to be kept unto the judgment of torture,

2:5  and spared not the former world, but preserved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, when he brought a flood on the world of the wicked;

2:6  and burned up the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, and condemned them by an overthrow, making them a demonstration to the wicked who should come after them;

2:7  and also delivered righteous Lot, who was tormented with the filthy conduct of the lawless;

2:8  for that upright man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing from day to day, was distressed in his righteous soul by their lawless deeds;

2:9  the Lord knoweth how to rescue from afflictions those who fear him; and he will reserve the wicked for the day of judgment to be tormented,

2:10  and especially them who go after the flesh in the lusts of pollution, and despise government. Daring and arrogant, they shudder not with awe while they blaspheme;

2:11  whereas angels, greater than they in might and valor, bring not against them a reproachful denunciation.

2:12  But these, like the dumb beasts that by nature are for slaughter and corruption, while reviling the things they know not, will perish in their own corruption;

2:13  they being persons with whom iniquity is the reward of iniquity, and by them rioting in the daytime is accounted delightful; defiled and full of spots are they, indulging themselves at their ease, while they give themselves up to pleasure;

2:14  having eyes that are full of adultery, and sins that never end; seducing unstable souls; and having a heart exercised in cupidity; children of malediction:

2:15  and, having left the way of rectitude, they have wandered and gone in the way of Balaam the son of Beor, who loved the wages of iniquity,

2:16  and who had for the reprover of his transgression a dumb ass, which, speaking with the speech of men, rebuked the madness of the prophet.

2:17  These are wells without water, clouds driven by a tempest, persons for whom is reserved the blackness of darkness.

2:18  For, while they utter astonishing vanity, they seduce, with obscene lusts of the flesh, them who have almost abandoned these that walk in error.

2:19  And they promise them liberty, while they themselves are the slaves of corruption: for, by whatever thing a man is vanquished, to that is he enslaved.

2:20  For if, when they have escaped the pollutions of the world by the knowledge of our Lord and Redeemer Jesus the Messiah, they become again involved in the same, and are vanquished, their latter state is worse than the former.

2:21  For it would have been better for them, not to have known the way of righteousness, than after having known it, to turn back from the holy commandment that was delivered to them.

2:22  But the true proverb hath happened to them: the dog returneth to his vomit and the sow that was washed, to her wallowing in the mire.