corruption; (13)receiving the recompence of iniquity,
counting daily luxury their pleasure; spots and blemishes, when they
feast together with you; riotously indulging in their own delusions:
(14)having eyes full of adultery, and insatiable of sin; ensnaring
souls of no stability; having a heart practised in all the wiles of
covetousness; children for a curse: (15)who forsaking the strait road
are gone out of the way, following the path of Balaam the son of Bosor
who loved the wages of iniquity. (16)But received a reproof for his
peculiar transgression: the dumb ass articulating with a human voice
restrained the perverseness of the prophet.

(17)These are fountains without water, clouds driven by a hurricane;
for whom the blackness of darkness for ever is reserved. (18)Uttering
pompous discourses of inanity, ensnaring by the lusts of the flesh, by
lascivious impurities, those who had truly escaped from such as live in
a course of delusion. (19)Preaching liberty to them, while they
themselves are the slaves of corruption: for by whatever a man is
overcome, by that also he is enslaved. (20)For if having escaped from
the defilements of the world by the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour
Jesus Christ, they are again enveloped by them and overcome, their last
deeds are worse than the first. (21)For it had been better for them
never to have been acquainted with the way of righteousness, than,
after knowing it, to have turned aside from the holy commandment
delivered unto them. (22)But the true proverb is verified in them, The
dog hath returned to his own vomit; and the sow which was washed to its
wallowing in the mire.

CHAP. III.

THIS second epistle, beloved, I now write unto you; in both which I
rouse up your sincere mind by awakening your recollection (2)to
remember the words, that have been spoken aforetime by the holy
prophets, and the injunction of us the apostles of the Lord and
Saviour: (3)knowing this principally, that in the last of the days
there will come scoffers, walking after their own lewd passions, (4)and
saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for ever since the fathers
fell asleep, all things continue in the same state as from the
beginning of the creation. (5)For this they chuse to keep out of sight,
that by the word of God the heavens were created of old, and the earth
rising out of the water and subsisting amidst the water; (6)whence the
world then existing, being deluged by water, was destroyed;