Deliverance from False Prophets
(Jude 1:3–16)

1But there were also false prophets among the people, as also among you⁺ there will be false teachers who will stealthily introduce destructive heresies, even denying the Master having bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction. 2And many will follow after their sensuality,† through whom the way of the truth will be blasphemed. 3And through covetousness they will exploit you⁺ with fabricated words, for whom the judgment of long ago is not idle, and their destruction does not slumber.†

4For if God did not spare the angels having sinned, but having cast them down to Tartarus† in chains† of gloomy darkness, He delivered them, being kept for judgment; 5and He did not spare the ancient world, but He preserved Noah, a preacher of righteousness, one of eight, having brought the flood upon the world of the ungodly; 6and He condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to destruction,† having reduced them to ashes, having set an example of what is coming on the ungodly; 7and He delivered righteous Lot, being distressed by the conduct in sensuality of the lawless 8(for that righteous man dwelling, among them, day after day, was tormented in his righteous soul in seeing and hearing their lawless works)— 9then the Lord knows to deliver the devout out of trial and to keep the unrighteous being punished unto the day of judgment, 10and especially those going after the flesh in the passion of defilement and despising authority. Bold, self-willed, they are not afraid of blaspheming glorious ones,† 11whereas angels, being greater in strength and power, do not bring against them a blasphemous judgment before the Lord.†

12But these, as irrational animals having been born naturally for capture and destruction, blaspheming in what they are ignorant of, in their destruction also will be destroyed, 13suffering harm as the wage of unrighteousness;† esteeming luxury in daytime as pleasure; spots and blemishes, luxuriating in their deceptions, feasting with you⁺; 14having eyes full of adultery, and unceasing from sin; enticing unstable souls; having a heart having been trained in covetousness—children of a curse!

15Having forsaken the straight way, they went astray, having followed after the way of Balaam son of Beor,† who loved the wage of unrighteousness. 16But he had reproof for his own violation of the law by a mute donkey; having spoken in a man’s voice, it restrained the madness of the prophet.

17These are springs without waters and mists† being driven by a storm, for whom the gloom of darkness has been kept.† 18For speaking great swelling words of vanity, they entice in the passions of the flesh to sensuality those barely escaping from those conducting themselves in error,† 19promising to them freedom, themselves being slaves of corruption. For by what anyone has been subdued, by that also he is enslaved.

20For if, having escaped from the pollutions of the world in the knowledge of the† Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, now again having been entangled in these they are subdued, the last state has become worse to them than the first. 21For it would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness than, having known it, to have turned from the holy commandment having been delivered to them. 22The thing of the true proverb has happened to them: “A dog having returned to its own vomit,”† and, “A sow, having washed, to her rolling place in the mire.”

Footnotes:

2 TR destructive ways
3 BYZ will not slumber
4 That is cast them deep into hell; see the First Book of Enoch (1 Enoch 10:4-13, 18:11–19:1, and 20:2).
4 TH and WH in pits
6 WH does not include to destruction.
10 Or blaspheming angelic majesties
11 SBL does not include before the Lord.
13 BYZ and TR receiving the wages of unrighteousness
15 NA, SBL, BYZ, and TR Bosor
17 BYZ and TR clouds
17 BYZ and TR include forever.
18 BYZ and TR those having truly escaped from others who live in error.
20 NA27 our
22 Proverbs 26:11