2 Peter 2:4-22 For God did not even spare angels that sinned, but cast them into hell, delivering them to be kept there in pits of gloom till the judgment and their doom. And He spared not the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a preacher of righteousness, with seven other persons, when He brought a flood upon the world of ungodly people. And He condemned to ruin and extinction the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, reducing them to ashes and thus set them forth as an example to those who would be ungodly; And He rescued righteous Lot, greatly worn out and distressed by the wanton ways of the ungodly and lawless— For that just man, living there among them, tortured his righteous soul every day with what he saw and heard of their unlawful and wicked deeds— Now if all these things are true, then be sure the Lord knows how to rescue the godly out of temptations and trials, and how to keep the ungodly under chastisement until the day of judgment and doom, And particularly those who walk after the flesh and indulge in the lust of polluting passion and scorn and despise authority. Presumptuous and daring self-willed and self-loving creatures! They scoff at and revile dignitaries glorious ones without trembling, Whereas even angels, though superior in might and power, do not bring a defaming charge against them before the Lord. But these people! Like unreasoning beasts, mere creatures of instinct, born only to be captured and destroyed, railing at things of which they are ignorant, they shall utterly perish in their own corruption in their destroying they shall surely be destroyed, Being destined to receive punishment as the reward of their unrighteousness suffering wrong as the hire for their wrongdoing. They count it a delight to revel in the daytime living luxuriously and delicately. They are blots and blemishes, reveling in their deceptions and carousing together even as they feast with you. They have eyes full of harlotry, insatiable for sin. They beguile and bait and lure away unstable souls. Their hearts are trained in covetousness lust, greed, they are children of a curse exposed to cursing! Forsaking the straight road they have gone astray; they have followed the way of Balaam the son of Beor, who loved the reward of wickedness. But he was rebuked for his own transgression when a dumb beast of burden spoke with human voice and checked the prophet’s madness. These are springs without water and mists driven along before a tempest, for whom is reserved forever the gloom of darkness. For uttering loud boasts of folly, they beguile and lure with lustful desires of the flesh those who are barely escaping from them who are wrongdoers. They promise them liberty, when they themselves are the slaves of depravity and defilement—for by whatever anyone is made inferior or worse or is overcome, to that person or thing he is enslaved. For if, after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the full, personal knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they again become entangled in them and are overcome, their last condition is worse for them than the first. For never to have obtained a full, personal knowledge of the way of righteousness would have been better for them than, having obtained such knowledge, to turn back from the holy commandment which was verbally delivered to them. There has befallen them the thing spoken of in the true proverb, The dog turns back to his own vomit, and, The sow is washed only to wallow again in the mire.
Posted on: Sun, 06 Oct 2013 03:17:59 +0000
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