9. then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment,
10. especially those who follow the polluting desires of the flesh and despise authority. Bold, arrogant people! They do not tremble when they blaspheme 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 — speak blasphemies about things they don’t understand, and in their destruction they too will be destroyed,
13. suffering harm as the payment for unrighteousness. They consider it a pleasure to carouse in the daytime. They are spots and blemishes, delighting in their deceptions as they feast with you.
14. They have eyes full of adultery and are always looking for sin. They seduce unstable people and have hearts trained in greed. Children under a curse!
15. They have gone astray by abandoning the straight path and have followed the path of Balaam, the son of Bosor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness
16. but received a rebuke for his transgression: A donkey that could not talk spoke with a human voice and restrained the prophet’s irrationality.
17. These people are springs without water, mists driven by a whirlwind. The gloom of darkness has been reserved for them.
18. For by uttering boastful, empty words, 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.
20. For if, having escaped the world’s impurity through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in these things and defeated, the last state is worse for them than the first.