The Judgment of False Teachers
1 There were indeed false prophets c among the people, just as there will be false teachers d among you. They will bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought e them, and will bring swift destruction on themselves. 2 Many will follow their depraved ways, and the way of truth will be maligned because of them. f 3 They will exploit g you in their greed h with made-up stories. Their condemnation, i pronounced long ago, is not idle, and their destruction does not sleep.
4 For if God didn’t spare j the angels who sinned but cast them into hell ,k and delivered them in chains of utter darkness to be kept for judgment; l 5 and if he didn’t spare the ancient world, but protected Noah, m a preacher of righteousness, and seven others, ,n when he brought the flood on the world of the ungodly; 6 and if he reduced the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah o to ashes and condemned them to extinction, making them an example of what is coming to the ungodly; ,p 7 and if he rescued righteous Lot, q distressed by the depraved behavior of the immoral 8 (for as that righteous man lived among them day by day, his righteous soul was tormented by the lawless deeds he saw and heard r )— 9 then the Lord knows how to rescue s the godly from trials and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment, t 10 especially those who follow the polluting desires of the flesh and despise authority. u
Bold, arrogant people! They are not afraid to slander the glorious ones; 11 however, angels, who are greater in might and power, do not bring a slanderous charge against them before the Lord. 12 But these people, like irrational animals—creatures of instinct born to be caught and destroyed—slander what they do not understand, and in their destruction they too will be destroyed. 13 They will be paid back with harm for the harm they have done. They consider it a pleasure to carouse in broad daylight. They are spots and blemishes, delighting in their deceptions while they feast with you. 14 They have eyes full of adultery v that never stop looking for sin. They seduce unstable people and have hearts trained in greed. Children under a curse! w 15 They have gone astray by abandoning the straight path x and have followed the path of Balaam, y the son of Bosor, who loved the wages of wickedness z 16 but received a rebuke for his lawlessness: A speechless donkey spoke with a human voice and restrained the prophet’s madness. a
17 These people are springs without water, mists driven by a storm. The gloom of darkness has been reserved for them. b 18 For by uttering boastful, empty words, c they seduce, with fleshly desires and debauchery, people who have barely escaped from those who live in error. 19 They promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption, since people are enslaved to whatever defeats them. d 20 For if, having escaped the world’s impurity through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, e they are again entangled in these things and defeated, the last state is worse for them than the first. f 21 For it would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness g than, after knowing it, to turn back from the holy command h delivered i to them. j 22 It has happened to them according to the true proverb: A dog returns to its own vomit, ,k and, “A washed sow returns to wallowing in the mud.”
C. Certainty of judgment (2:1–10a). 2:1–3. At this point the author reveals his central concern, as he incorporates the material he takes from Jude. There were false prophets in the past, and there are false teachers now. In Jude the others are outsiders, never named, and never said to be teachers. Here they are insiders (“among you”) who are “false teachers” (2:1), and it is only the new ideas that come from outside. (They “bring” them in.) The phrase “destructive heresies” means not so much false doctrine (the denial of the return of Jesus is a secondary issue and so left to last) as ideas that lead to divisions in the community. (“Heresy” indicates they separated into a party or sect.) It is also clear that these ideas lead to “depraved ways” (2:2; some form of promiscuity) that even those in the larger pagan community around the believers would condemn, and that these teachers based this teaching on “made-up stories” (2:3; perhaps stories about spiritual experiences or visions), unlike the story of the transfiguration and the words of the prophets.
2:4–10a. God, of course, is not fooled and will not be slow to judge them. The author gives a series of examples drawn from Jude, which he edits to stress that God can judge and at the same time save the righteous, rather than having to remove the righteous first or being prevented from judging because of the presence of the righteous. The first example (2:4) is a reading of Gn 6:1–8 through the lens of works like 1 Enoch, in which the sinning beings are angels who are subsequently imprisoned. But while the “angels who sinned” perished, Noah, “a preacher of righteousness” (an idea drawn from extrabiblical Jewish stories about Noah), was saved (2:5). The same is true about Sodom and Gomorrah and the rescue of Lot (2:6–7), whose “tormented” soul is also an idea drawn from extrabiblical Jewish traditions, although his righteousness may be implied from Gn 18.
D. Denunciation of the false teachers (2:10b–22). 2:10b–12. The thesis that God distinguishes in judgment leads into a denunciation of the false teachers. Unlike the holy angels, these teachers slander celestial beings (2:10b). (The clear reference found in Jude to the Testament of Moses has been removed.) But such behavior is simply emotional reaction and thus from what we would call the “animal brain”—so these teachers will die like animals (2:12).
2:13–16. The author charges these teachers with carousing (and not even trying to hide it) at the Lord’s Supper, adultery, and greed (financially exploiting the community) (2:13–14). The last charge makes them like Balaam (also mentioned in Jude), who prophesied or taught for money (both practices—especially prophecy for money—were rejected in the early church; 2:15). Balaam’s action (and, by implication, that of the teachers) was so shameful that a dumb animal rebuked him verbally (2:16)! (In Nm 22:30 the donkey speaks, but in Nm 22:32–33 it is the angel who rebukes Balaam; however, in Second Temple Jewish literature the eloquent rebuke is in the donkey’s mouth.)
2:17–22. These teachers promise much but deliver little (2:17–18). They have been and still claim to be followers of Jesus and, as pointed out in 1:3–5, have therefore been delivered from the power of desire. But now they are enslaved to it again (so the “freedom” from conventional morality that they promise is a sham, since they are not truly free themselves; 2:19). Therefore, they are worse off than if they had never become believers (2:20–21), presumably because they will receive harsher judgment than those who have never accepted the good news. This shocking conclusion is capped off with the citation of two proverbs, one Jewish and one pagan (2:22).