| New American Standard Bible 1995 | New Living Translation |
| 1But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will also be false teachers among you, who will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing swift destruction upon themselves. | 1But there were also false prophets in Israel, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will cleverly teach destructive heresies and even deny the Master who bought them. In this way, they will bring sudden destruction on themselves. |
| 2Many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of the truth will be maligned; | 2Many will follow their evil teaching and shameful immorality. And because of these teachers, the way of truth will be slandered. |
| 3and in their greed they will exploit you with false words; their judgment from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep. | 3In their greed they will make up clever lies to get hold of your money. But God condemned them long ago, and their destruction will not be delayed. |
| 4For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to pits of darkness, reserved for judgment; | 4For God did not spare even the angels who sinned. He threw them into hell, in gloomy pits of darkness, where they are being held until the day of judgment. |
| 5and did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a preacher of righteousness, with seven others, when He brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly; | 5And God did not spare the ancient world—except for Noah and the seven others in his family. Noah warned the world of God’s righteous judgment. So God protected Noah when he destroyed the world of ungodly people with a vast flood. |
| 6and if He condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to destruction by reducing them to ashes, having made them an example to those who would live ungodly lives thereafter; | 6Later, God condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah and turned them into heaps of ashes. He made them an example of what will happen to ungodly people. |
| 7and if He rescued righteous Lot, oppressed by the sensual conduct of unprincipled men | 7But God also rescued Lot out of Sodom because he was a righteous man who was sick of the shameful immorality of the wicked people around him. |
| 8(for by what he saw and heard that righteous man, while living among them, felt his righteous soul tormented day after day by their lawless deeds), | 8Yes, Lot was a righteous man who was tormented in his soul by the wickedness he saw and heard day after day. |
| 9then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from temptation, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment, | 9So you see, the Lord knows how to rescue godly people from their trials, even while keeping the wicked under punishment until the day of final judgment. |
| 10and especially those who indulge the flesh in its corrupt desires and despise authority. Daring, self-willed, they do not tremble when they revile angelic majesties, | 10He is especially hard on those who follow their own twisted sexual desire, and who despise authority. These people are proud and arrogant, daring even to scoff at supernatural beings without so much as trembling. |
| 11whereas angels who are greater in might and power do not bring a reviling judgment against them before the Lord. | 11But the angels, who are far greater in power and strength, do not dare to bring from the Lord a charge of blasphemy against those supernatural beings. |
| 12But these, like unreasoning animals, born as creatures of instinct to be captured and killed, reviling where they have no knowledge, will in the destruction of those creatures also be destroyed, | 12These false teachers are like unthinking animals, creatures of instinct, born to be caught and destroyed. They scoff at things they do not understand, and like animals, they will be destroyed. |
| 13suffering wrong as the wages of doing wrong. They count it a pleasure to revel in the daytime. They are stains and blemishes, reveling in their deceptions, as they carouse with you, | 13Their destruction is their reward for the harm they have done. They love to indulge in evil pleasures in broad daylight. They are a disgrace and a stain among you. They delight in deception even as they eat with you in your fellowship meals. |
| 14having eyes full of adultery that never cease from sin, enticing unstable souls, having a heart trained in greed, accursed children; | 14They commit adultery with their eyes, and their desire for sin is never satisfied. They lure unstable people into sin, and they are well trained in greed. They live under God’s curse. |
| 15forsaking the right way, they have gone astray, having followed the way of Balaam, the son of Beor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness; | 15They have wandered off the right road and followed the footsteps of Balaam son of Beor, who loved to earn money by doing wrong. |
| 16but he received a rebuke for his own transgression, for a mute donkey, speaking with a voice of a man, restrained the madness of the prophet. | 16But Balaam was stopped from his mad course when his donkey rebuked him with a human voice. |
| 17These are springs without water and mists driven by a storm, for whom the black darkness has been reserved. | 17These people are as useless as dried-up springs or as mist blown away by the wind. They are doomed to blackest darkness. |
| 18For speaking out arrogant words of vanity they entice by fleshly desires, by sensuality, those who barely escape from the ones who live in error, | 18They brag about themselves with empty, foolish boasting. With an appeal to twisted sexual desires, they lure back into sin those who have barely escaped from a lifestyle of deception. |
| 19promising them freedom while they themselves are slaves of corruption; for by what a man is overcome, by this he is enslaved. | 19They promise freedom, but they themselves are slaves of sin and corruption. For you are a slave to whatever controls you. |
| 20For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world by the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and are overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first. | 20And when people escape from the wickedness of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and then get tangled up and enslaved by sin again, they are worse off than before. |
| 21For it would be better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to turn away from the holy commandment handed on to them. | 21It would be better if they had never known the way to righteousness than to know it and then reject the command they were given to live a holy life. |
| 22It has happened to them according to the true proverb, "A DOG RETURNS TO ITS OWN VOMIT," and, "A sow, after washing, returns to wallowing in the mire." | 22They prove the truth of this proverb: “A dog returns to its vomit.” And another says, “A washed pig returns to the mud.” |
| New American Standard Bible Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation, La Habra, Calif. All rights reserved. For Permission to Quote Information visit //www.lockman.org | Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved. |
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