The Message Bible MSG
New American Standard Bible NAS
1 But there were also lying prophets among the people then, just as there will be lying religious teachers among you. They'll smuggle in destructive divisions, pitting you against each other - biting the hand of the One who gave them a chance to have their lives back! They've put themselves on a fast downhill slide to destruction,
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But 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.
2 but not before they recruit a crowd of mixed-up followers who can't tell right from wrong.
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Many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of the truth will be maligned;
3 They're only out for themselves. They'll say anything, anything, that sounds good to exploit you. They won't, of course, get by with it. They'll come to a bad end, for God has never just stood by and let that kind of thing go on.
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and in their greed they will exploit you with false words; their judgment from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep.
4 God didn't let the rebel angels off the hook, but jailed them in hell till Judgment Day.
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For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to pits of darkness, reserved for judgment;
5 Neither did he let the ancient ungodly world off. He wiped it out with a flood, rescuing only eight people - Noah, the sole voice of righteousness, was one of them.
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and 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;
6 God decreed destruction for the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. A mound of ashes was all that was left - grim warning to anyone bent on an ungodly life.
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and 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;
7 But that good man Lot, driven nearly out of his mind by the sexual filth and perversity, was rescued.
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and if He rescued righteous Lot, oppressed by the sensual conduct of unprincipled men
8 Surrounded by moral rot day after day after day, that righteous man was in constant torment.
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(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 ),
9 So God knows how to rescue the godly from evil trials. And he knows how to hold the feet of the wicked to the fire until Judgment Day.
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then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from temptation, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment,
10 God is especially incensed against these "teachers" who live by lust, addicted to a filthy existence. They despise interference from true authority, preferring to indulge in self-rule. Insolent egotists, they don't hesitate to speak evil against the most splendid of creatures.
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and 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,
11 Even angels, their superiors in every way, wouldn't think of throwing their weight around like that, trying to slander others before God.
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whereas angels who are greater in might and power do not bring a reviling judgment against them before the Lord .
12 These people are nothing but brute beasts, born in the wild, predators on the prowl. In the very act of bringing down others with their ignorant blasphemies, they themselves will be brought down, losers in the end.
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But 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,
13 Their evil will boomerang on them. They're so despicable and addicted to pleasure that they indulge in wild parties, carousing in broad daylight.
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suffering 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,
14 They're obsessed with adultery, compulsive in sin, seducing every vulnerable soul they come upon. Their specialty is greed, and they're experts at it. Dead souls!
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having eyes full of adultery that never cease from sin, enticing unstable souls, having a heart trained in greed, accursed children;
15 They've left the main road and are directionless, having taken the way of Balaam, son of Beor, the prophet who turned profiteer, a connoisseur of evil.
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forsaking the right way, they have gone astray, having followed the way of Balaam, the son of Beor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness;
16 But Balaam was stopped in his wayward tracks: A dumb animal spoke in a human voice and prevented the prophet's craziness.
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but 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.
17 There's nothing to these people - they're dried-up fountains, storm-scattered clouds, headed for a black hole in hell.
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These are springs without water and mists driven by a storm, for whom the black darkness has been reserved.
18 They are loudmouths, full of hot air, but still they're dangerous. Men and women who have recently escaped from a deviant life are most susceptible to their brand of seduction.
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For speaking out arrogant words of vanity they entice by fleshly desires, by sensuality, those who barely escape from the ones who live in error,
19 They promise these newcomers freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption, for if they're addicted to corruption - and they are - they're enslaved.
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promising them freedom while they themselves are slaves of corruption; for by what a man is overcome, by this he is enslaved.
20 If they've escaped from the slum of sin by experiencing our Master and Savior, Jesus Christ, and then slid back into that same old life again, they're worse than if they had never left.
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For 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.
21 Better not to have started out on the straight road to God than to start out and then turn back, repudiating the experience and the holy command.
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For 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.
22 They prove the point of the proverbs, "A dog goes back to its own vomit," and, "A scrubbed-up pig heads for the mud."
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It 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."
Published by permission. Originally published by NavPress in English as THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language copyright 2002 by Eugene Peterson. All rights reserved.
New American Standard Bible Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation, La Habra, California. All rights reserved.