2nd Peter Chapter 2

From The Open Bible Project

2:1 But false prophets also arose among the people, as false teachers will also be among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, denying even the Master who bought them, bringing on themselves swift destruction.

• (1) As in times past there were two kinds of prophets, the one true and the other false, so Peter tells them that there will be true and false teachers in the Church, so much so that Christ himself will be denied by some, who nonetheless will call him redeemer.
• (a) Under the law, while the state and policy of the Jews was yet standing.

2:2 Many will follow their [3] immoral [See 2nd Peter Footnotes 3] ways, and as a result, the way of the truth will be maligned.

• (2) There shall not only be heresies, but also many followers of them.

2:3 In covetousness they will exploit you with deceptive words: whose sentence now from of old doesn't linger, and their destruction will not slumber.

• (3) Covetousness for the most part is a companion of heresy, and makes trade in souls.
• (b) They will abuse you, and sell you as they sell cattle in an auction.
• (4) Comfort for the godly: God who cast the angels that fell away from him, headlong into the darkness of hell, to eventually be judged; and who burned Sodom, and saved Lot, will deliver his elect from these errors, and will utterly destroy those unrighteous.

2:4 For if God didn't spare angels when they sinned, but cast them down to [4] Tartarus [See 2nd Peter Footnotes 4], and committed them to pits of darkness, to be reserved for judgment;

• (c) So the Greeks called the deep dungeons under the earth, which should be appointed to torment the souls of the wicked in.
• (d) Bound them with darkness as with chains: and by darkness he means that most miserable state of life that is full of horror.

2:5 and didn't spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah with seven others, a preacher of righteousness, when he brought a flood on the world of the ungodly;

• (e) Which was before the flood: not that God made a new world, but because the world seemed new.
• (f) For one hundred and twenty years, he did not cease to warn the wicked both by word and deed, of the wrath of God hanging over their heads.

2:6 and turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemned them to destruction, having made them an example to those who would live ungodly;

2:7 and delivered righteous Lot, who was very distressed by the lustful life of the wicked

2:8 (for that righteous man dwelling among them, was tormented in his righteous soul from day to day with seeing and hearing lawless deeds):

• (g) Whatever way he looked, and turned his ears.
• (h) He had a troubled soul, and being vehemently grieved, lived a painful life.

2:9 the Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptation and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment;

• (i) Has been long practised in saving and delivering the righteous.

2:10 but chiefly those who walk after the flesh in the lust of defilement, and despise authority. Daring, self-willed, they are not afraid to speak evil of dignitaries;

• (5) He goes to another type of corrupt men, who nonetheless are within the bosom of the Church, who are wickedly given, and do seditiously speak evil of the authority of magistrates (which the angels themselves that minister before God, do not discredit.) A true and accurate description of the Romish clergy (as they call it.)
• (k) Princes and great men, be they ever so high in authority.

2:11 whereas angels, though greater in might and power, don't bring a railing judgment against them before the Lord.

2:12 But these, as unreasoning creatures, born natural animals to be taken and destroyed, speaking evil in matters about which they are ignorant, will in their destroying surely be destroyed,

• (6) An accurate description of the same persons, in which they are compared to beasts who are made for destruction, while they give themselves to fill their bellies: For there is no greater ignorance than is in these men: although they most impudently find fault with those things of which they know not: and it shall come to pass that they shall destroy themselves as beasts with those pleasures with which they are delighted, and dishonour and defile the company of the godly.
• (l) Made to this end to be a prey to others: So do these men willingly cast themselves into Satan’s snares.
• (m) Their own wicked conduct shall bring them to destruction.

2:13 receiving the wages of unrighteousness; people who count it pleasure to revel in the daytime, spots and blemishes, reveling in their deceit while they feast with you;

• (n) When by being among the Christians in the holy banquets which the Church keeps, they would seem by that to be true members of the Church, yet they are indeed but blots on the Church.

2:14 having eyes full of adultery, and who can't cease from sin; enticing unsettled souls; having a heart trained in greed; children of cursing;

• (7) He condemns those men, showing even in their behaviour and countenance an unmeasurable lust, making trade of the souls of vain persons, as men exercised in all the crafts of covetousness, to be short, as men that sell themselves for money to curse the sons of God in the same way Balaam did, whom the dumb beast reproved.

2:15 forsaking the right way, they went astray, having followed the way of Balaam the son of Beor, who loved the wages of wrongdoing;

2:16 but he was rebuked for his own disobedience. A mute donkey spoke with a man's voice and stopped the madness of the prophet.

2:17 These are wells without water, clouds driven by a storm; for whom the blackness of darkness has been reserved forever.

• (8) Another note by which it may be known what manner of men they are, because they have inwardly nothing but that which is utterly vain or very harmful, although they make a show of some great goodness, yet they shall not escape unpunished for it, because under pretence of false freedom, they draw men into the most miserable slavery of sin.
• (o) Who boast of knowledge and have nothing in them.
• (p) Most gross darkness.

2:18 For, uttering great swelling words of emptiness, they entice in the lusts of the flesh, by licentiousness, those who are indeed escaping from those who live in error;

• (q) They deceive with vain and swelling words.
• (r) They take them, as fish are taken with the hook.
• (s) Unfeignedly and indeed, clean departed from idolatry.

2:19 promising them liberty, while they themselves are bondservants of corruption; for a man is brought into bondage by whoever overcomes him.

2:20 For if, after they have escaped the defilement of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in it and overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first.

• (9) It is better to have never known the way of righteousness, than to turn back from it to the old filthiness: and men that do so, are compared to dogs and swine.

2:21 For it would be better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after knowing it, to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them.

2:22 But it has happened to them according to the true proverb, "The dog turns to his own vomit again,"[5] and "the sow that has washed to wallowing in the mire."