New Testament Lesson

2 Pet. 2:1-10a (NRSV)

1 But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will
secretly bring in destructive opinions. They will even deny the Master who bought them-bringing swift
destruction on themselves. 2Even so, many will follow their licentious ways, and because of these
teachers the way of truth will be maligned.

3 And in their greed they will exploit you with deceptive words. Their condemnation, pronounced against
them long ago, has not been idle, and their destruction is not asleep. 4For if God did not spare the angels
when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of deepest darkness to be kept until
the judgment; 5and if he did not spare the ancient world, even though he saved Noah, a herald of
righteousness, with seven others, when he brought a flood on a world of the ungodly; 6and if by turning the
cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes he condemned them to extinction and made them an example of
what is coming to the ungodly;

7 and if he rescued Lot, a righteous man greatly distressed by the licentiousness of the lawless 8(for that
righteous man, living among them day after day, was tormented in his righteous soul by their lawless deeds
that he saw and heard), 9then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trial, and to keep the
unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment

10 -especially those who indulge their flesh in depraved lust, and who despise authority. Bold and willful,
they are not afraid to slander the glorious ones,

The Word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.