But in those days afalse prophets arose among the people, just as there will be bfalse teachers camong you, who will dsubtly introduce edestructive heresies, even fdenying the gMaster who hbought them, bringing swift destruction on themselves.Deut 13:1ff; Jer 6:132 Cor 11:13Matt 7:15; 1 Tim 4:1Gal 2:4; Jude 41 Cor 11:19; Gal 5:20Jude 4Rev 6:101 Cor 6:20 2 Many will follow their ashameful ways, and because of them bthe way of truth will be cmaligned.Gen 19:5ff; 2 Pet 2:7, 18; Jude 4Acts 16:17; 22:4; 24:14Rom 2:24 3 And in their agreed they will bexploit you with cfalse arguments and twisted doctrine. dTheir sentence of condemnation which God has decreed from a time long ago is not idle but is still in force, and their destruction and deepening misery is not asleep but is on its way.1 Tim 6:5; 2 Pet 2:14; Jude 162 Cor 2:17; 1 Thess 2:5Rom 16:18; 2 Pet 1:16Deut 32:35
4 1For if aGod did not even spare angels that sinned, but threw them into 2hell and bsent them to pits of gloom to be kept there for judgment;This verse begins one of the longest sentences in the NT. The sentence concludes in v 10a.For emphasis Peter uses a word (tartarus) from Greek mythology describing a hell reserved for the most horrendous of people to emphasize the terrible doom awaiting false prophets and teachers who manipulate and twist the truth of the gospel message.Jude 6Rev 20:1f 5 and if He did not spare athe ancient world, but protected bNoah, a preacher of righteousness, with seven others, when He brought the judgment of a cflood upon the world of the ungodly; Gen 6-8; 1+@Pet 3:20Ezek 26:20; 2 Pet 3:6Gen 6:8, 9; 1 Pet 3:202 Pet 3:6 6 and if He acondemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to destruction by reducing them to ashes, having made them an bexample to those who would clive ungodly lives thereafter; Gen 19:24Gen 19:24; Jude 7Is 1:9; Matt 10:15; 11:23; Rom 9:29; Jude 7Jude 15 7 and if He arescued righteous 1Lot, who was tormented by the bimmoral conduct of cunprincipled and ungodly men Gen 19:16, 29Lot was the nephew of Abraham and the son of Haran. He traveled with his uncle to Canaan and eventually settled in Sodom because of its proximity to good grazing land for his flocks. Peter presents a side of Lot not easily inferred from the OT account.Gen 19:16, 29Gen 19:5ff; 2 Pet 2:2, 18; Jude 42 Pet 3:17 8 (for that ajust man, while living among them, felt his righteous soul tormented day after day by what he saw and heard of their lawless acts),Heb 11:4 9 then in light of the fact that all this is true, be sure that athe Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trial, and how to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the bday of judgment,1 Cor 10:13; Rev 3:10Matt 10:15; Jude 6 10 and especially 1those who aindulge in the corrupt passions of the sin nature, and bdespise authority.In the descriptions that follow, Peter may specifically have in mind the false teachers of whom he spoke in vv 1-3.2 Pet 3:3; Jude 16, 18Ex 22:28; Jude 8Titus 1:7
Presumptuous and reckless, cself-willed and arrogant creatures, despising the majesty of the Lord, they do not tremble when they drevile angelic majesties, 11 awhereas even angels who are superior in might and power do not bring a reviling accusation against them before the Lord. Jude 8Jude 9 12 But athese false teachers, like unreasoning animals, mere creatures of instinct, bborn to be captured and destroyed, reviling things they do not understand, will also perish in their own corruption in their destroying they will be destroyed,Jude 10Jer 12:3; Col 2:22 13 suffering wrong destined for punishment as the awages of doing wrong. They count it a delight to brevel in the cdaytime living luxuriously. They are stains and blemishes on mankind, dreveling in their 1deceptions even as they efeast with you.One early ms reads love feasts.2 Pet 2:15Rom 13:131 Thess 5:71 Cor 11:21; Jude 12 14 They have eyes full of adultery, constantly looking for sin, aenticing and luring away bunstable souls. Having hearts trained in cgreed, they are dchildren of a curse.2 Pet 2:18James 1:8; 2 Pet 3:162 Pet 2:3Eph 2:3 15 Abandoning athe straight road that is, the right way to live, they have gone astray; they have followed bthe way of the false teacher Balaam the son of Beor, who loved cthe reward of wickedness; Num 22:5, 7Acts 13:10Num 22:5, 7; Deut 23:4; Neh 13:2; Jude 11; Rev 2:142 Pet 2:13 16 but he was rebuked for his own transgression: aa mute donkey spoke with a man’s voice and restrained the prophet’s madness. Num 22:21-31Num 22:21, 23, 28, 30ff
17 These false teachers are asprings without water and mists driven by a tempest, bfor whom is reserved the gloom of black darkness.Jude 12Jude 13 18 For uttering aarrogant words of bvanity pompous words disguised to sound scholarly or profound, but meaning nothing and containing no spiritual truth, they cbeguile and lure using lustful desires, by dsensuality, those who barely eescape from the ones who live in error.Jude 16Eph 4:172 Pet 2:142 Pet 2:22 Pet 1:4; 2:20 19 They promise them liberty, when they themselves are the slaves of depravity—for aby whatever anyone is defeated and overcome, to that person, thing, philosophy, or concept he is continually enslaved.John 8:34; Rom 6:16 20 For if, after they have aescaped the pollutions of the world by personal bknowledge of our cLord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again dentangled in them and are overcome, etheir last condition has become worse for them than the first.2 Pet 2:182 Pet 1:22 Pet 1:11; 3:182 Tim 2:4Matt 12:45; Luke 11:26 21 aFor it would have been better for them not to have personally known the way of righteousness, than to have known it and then to have turned back from bthe holy commandment verbally chanded on to them.Ezek 18:24; Heb 6:4ff; 10:26f; James 4:17Gal 6:2; 1 Tim 6:14; 2 Pet 3:2Jude 3 22 The thing spoken of in the true proverb has happened to them, “aTHE DOG RETURNS TO HIS OWN VOMIT,” and, “A sow is washed only to wallow again in the mire.” Prov 26:11Prov 26:11