2 Peter 2

But there were also false prophets among the people long ago, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will quietly slip in teachings that destroy, even denying the Master who bought them, and so they bring quick ruin on themselves.

1But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.

Note"The people" is a standard term for Israel, so the sentence sets Israel's old false prophets alongside the false teachers expected in the church. "Lord" here is not the usual Greek word but despotes, the word for the owner of a slave (our word "despot" comes from it), and "bought them" is the language of the slave market: the picture is of slaves disowning the man who paid for them. "Heresies" translates haireseis, which meant chosen opinions and the parties or factions that form around them, not yet formal doctrinal error; "damnable" renders a word meaning simply "leading to destruction."

2Many people will follow their shameful way of living, and because of them people will speak badly about the way of truth.

2And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of.

Note"The way of truth" is more than a figure of speech: the earliest followers of Jesus called their movement "the Way," so the phrase names both a manner of living and the group itself. "Pernicious" translates a word for unrestrained, shameless indulgence, particularly sexual.

3Because they are greedy, they will use made-up words to make money off you. The sentence passed against them long ago is still standing, and the ruin waiting for them is not asleep.

3And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not.

Note"Make merchandise of you" is literal: the verb is the one used of a merchant trading in goods, so the readers are the stock being dealt in. "Feigned words" are manufactured, made-up arguments. The second half personifies the sentence and the destruction as two figures who are neither dawdling nor asleep.

4For God did not spare the angels when they sinned. He threw them down to hell and put them in chains of darkness, where they are kept until the judgment.

4For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment;

Note"Cast them down to hell" translates a single Greek verb built on Tartarus, the name in Greek mythology for the pit below the underworld where rebel gods were imprisoned. It appears nowhere else in the Bible, and it is not the ordinary word for hell. "The angels that sinned" points to a story the first readers knew well: the divine beings who took human wives in Genesis 6, a brief episode expanded at length in the book of 1 Enoch, which circulated widely in this period. Greek manuscripts differ here by one letter between "chains" (seirais) and "pits" (sirois) of darkness.

5And he did not spare the ancient world. He brought the flood on a world of ungodly people, but he kept Noah safe as one of eight people, a man who preached what is right.

5And spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly;

Note"Noah the eighth person" is a 1611 idiom, not a rank or a title. It means Noah along with seven others, that is, one of eight people brought through the flood: Noah, his wife, his three sons and their wives. "A preacher of righteousness" is not said of Noah in Genesis; it comes from Jewish retellings of the flood story current in the first century.

6And he condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha, destroying them and burning them to ashes. He made them an example of what is coming to people who live ungodly lives after them.

6And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha into ashes condemned them with an overthrow, making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly;

NoteGomorrha is the KJV's spelling of Gomorrah. The two cities are destroyed by fire in Genesis 19. "Ensample" is simply an older form of "example," and "overthrow" is the standard word for that catastrophe, a complete tearing down.

7And he rescued Lot, a man who did what was right and who was worn down by the filthy way the lawless people around him lived.

7And delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked:

Note"Conversation" in 1611 English meant a person's whole conduct and way of life, not talk. "Just" here means righteous, in the right, rather than fair-minded. Lot is Abraham's nephew, living in Sodom in Genesis 19.

8(Day after day that good man lived among them, and what he saw and heard tormented his righteous soul because of their lawless deeds.)

8(For that righteous man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds;)

Note"Vexed" was a far stronger word in 1611 than it is now. It meant tormented or worn down, not merely annoyed. The verse is a parenthesis: the writer's main sentence runs from verse 4 to verse 9 as one long "if God did this, then the Lord knows how to do that."

9Since all this is true, the Lord knows how to rescue godly people out of trials, and how to hold the unrighteous for punishment on the day of judgment.

9The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished:

Note"Temptations" translates peirasmos, which covers any trial, test or ordeal, including hardship and persecution, and is not limited to enticement to do wrong.

10This is true above all for those who follow the filthy desires of their bodies and look down on authority. They are bold and stubborn, and they are not afraid to insult glorious beings.

10But chiefly them that walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanness, and despise government. Presumptuous are they, selfwilled, they are not afraid to speak evil of dignities.

Note"Government" in 1611 meant authority or lordship in the abstract, not a civil administration; the Greek word is the quality of being lord. "Dignities" is literally "glories," and is generally taken to mean angelic or spiritual powers, though the writer never says which beings he means. "Presumptuous" here means daring and reckless rather than rude.

11Yet angels, who are greater in strength and power, do not bring such an insulting charge against those beings before the Lord.

11Whereas angels, which are greater in power and might, bring not railing accusation against them before the Lord.

Note"Railing" means abusive, insulting speech. Who the angels decline to accuse is genuinely unclear in the Greek: "against them" could mean against the glorious beings of verse 10 or against the false teachers themselves, and readers have taken it both ways. Some manuscripts do not have "before the Lord."

12But these men are like animals without reason, creatures that act on instinct, born to be caught and killed. They insult things they do not understand, and they will be completely destroyed in their own rot.

12But these, as natural brute beasts, made to be taken and destroyed, speak evil of the things that they understand not; and shall utterly perish in their own corruption;

Note"Natural brute beasts" means simply animals, described in the Greek as creatures acting on instinct and bred to be caught and killed. The end of the verse turns on one word, phthora, which means both moral rot and physical destruction: the thing they are corrupted by is the thing that destroys them.

13The harm they get back is the pay their wrongdoing has earned. They count it a pleasure to hold wild parties in broad daylight. They are stains and flaws, enjoying their own tricks while they share meals with you.

13And shall receive the reward of unrighteousness, as they that count it pleasure to riot in the day time. Spots they are and blemishes, sporting themselves with their own deceivings while they feast with you;

Note"Riot" in 1611 meant wild feasting and revelry, not a public disturbance. Formal banqueting belonged to the evening, so drinking parties in broad daylight marked a person as dissolute. "Spots... and blemishes" reverses the language used of sacrificial animals, which had to be without spot or blemish to be acceptable. In "sporting themselves with their own deceivings" the manuscripts split between two Greek words that differ by a single letter, apatais (deceivings) and agapais (love feasts, the shared meals of the church); the KJV follows the first, and "while they feast with you" keeps the meal in view either way.

14Their eyes are full of adultery, and they never stop sinning. They lure in people who are not steady. Their hearts have been trained in greed. They are children under a curse.

14Having eyes full of adultery, and that cannot cease from sin; beguiling unstable souls: an heart they have exercised with covetous practices; cursed children:

Note"Eyes full of adultery" is literally "eyes full of an adulteress": eyes that see a possible conquest in every woman. "Beguiling" translates a hunting and fishing word meaning to bait a hook or a trap. "Cursed children" is a Hebrew-style idiom, "children of a curse," meaning people who belong under a curse, not children someone has cursed.

15They have left the straight road and wandered off, following the road that Balaam son of Bosor took, who loved the pay he got for doing wrong.

15Which have forsaken the right way, and are gone astray, following the way of Balaam the son of Bosor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness;

NoteBalaam's story is in Numbers 22 to 24: a foreign seer hired for a fee by Balak, king of Moab, to curse Israel, who found he could only bless them. Later tradition blamed him for luring Israel into sin instead, which is the angle taken here. "Bosor" is the KJV's spelling; the Hebrew Bible calls him son of Beor, and many Greek manuscripts read Beor here as well.

16But he was corrected for his sin: a donkey, an animal that cannot speak, spoke with a human voice and stopped the prophet's madness.

16But was rebuked for his iniquity: the dumb ass speaking with man’s voice forbad the madness of the prophet.

NoteThe incident is Numbers 22:21 to 35, where Balaam's donkey sees the angel blocking the road that Balaam cannot see, and is given speech to say so. "Dumb" means unable to speak, with no suggestion of stupidity, and "forbad" means held back or restrained.

17These men are wells with no water, and clouds driven along by a storm. The blackest darkness is being kept for them forever.

17These are wells without water, clouds that are carried with a tempest; to whom the mist of darkness is reserved for ever.

NoteThe Greek word is for a spring or a well, the kind of water source travelers in a dry country plan a route around. One that has run dry is not a small disappointment but a dangerous one. Storm clouds that pass over without dropping rain work the same way: promise and no delivery.

18They speak big, swollen, empty words. By appealing to the body's desires and to wild living, they lure in people who are just getting away from those who live in error.

18For when they speak great swelling words of vanity, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, through much wantonness, those that were clean escaped from them who live in error.

Note"Vanity" in 1611 meant emptiness rather than conceit, so "great swelling words of vanity" are inflated words with nothing inside them. "Wantonness" is the same word rendered "pernicious" in verse 2, unrestrained indulgence. The manuscripts differ over one word in "clean escaped": some read ontos, actually or genuinely escaped, and others read oligos, barely escaping, which would make these people recent converts still in flight from their old life.

19They promise these people freedom, while they themselves are slaves to rot. For whatever defeats a man is what he becomes a slave to.

19While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption: for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage.

Note"Servants" translates the ordinary Greek word for slaves, not hired workers. The saying at the end of the verse comes from warfare and was a commonplace: a defeated man became the legal property of the man who beat him, so whatever masters you owns you.

20Suppose they have escaped the filth of the world by coming to know the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and then get tangled in it again and are defeated. Then they end up worse off than they were at the start.

20For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning.

21It would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than to know it and then turn away from the holy command that was handed on to them.

21For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them.

Note"Delivered unto them" uses the technical term for handing on a body of teaching intact from teacher to pupil, the same word behind "tradition." The point is that the command reached them whole, not that someone rescued them.

22What the true proverb says has come true for them: "The dog goes back to its own vomit," and, "The pig that was washed goes back to rolling in the mud."

22But it is happened unto them according to the true proverb, The dog is turned to his own vomit again; and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire.

NoteThe first proverb is Proverbs 26:11. The second is not in the Old Testament; close versions of it appear in the Story of Ahikar, a tale that circulated widely across the ancient Near East, and in Greek collections of sayings. Both animals were unclean under Jewish law, so calling someone a dog or a pig was already an insult before the proverbs added the vomit and the mud.