Read 2 Peter 2 here (text coming …) or at Bible Gateway.
The Greek Testament does not contain paragraph markers.
There are three different Chiastic structures this chapter forms. The message of the structures:
False prophets and false teachers speak with feigned words. A feigned word (different in Greek from ‘false’ describing prophets and teachers) is a statement asserted as true that the speaker knows is false. Thus they are not merely misguided, but they secretly and deceptively introduce destructive heresies among the believers. Their words are swollen with vanity: puffed up, boastful, yet empty and worthless. Finally, they speak evil (literally ‘blaspheme, slander’ in Greek) of things they do not understand.
Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks (Mat 12:34); consequently, the heart that speaks feigned, vain, and evil words is one set on lusts, uncleanness, adultery (unfaithfulness), and greed.
The heart of the structure is righteous Lot, dwelling in the midst of lawlessness day after day, and vexed in his soul because of it. ‘Lawless’ here is the same Greek word as in:
“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven … And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’ Mat 7:21-23
Strong’s G459 ἄνομος (anomos), literally ‘without law’ (‘a’ – negative particle + ‘nomos’ – law). Peter and Yeshua refer to the Law of God (‘the will of My Father’), not human law, which may enshrine and protect what God’s Law condemns.
Yet, surrounding the believer in this distressing state, is God, who rescues the righteous from the judgment on the wicked (1C) and delivers them from the temptations of lawlessness surrounding them (2C).
The message of the false prophets and teachers, whose feigned words conceal hearts full of lasciviousness, is that casting off God’s Law will bring you freedom (‘promising them freedom,’ vs. 19). But they themselves are enslaved to the corruption they promote. They entice the unstable, recently escaped from the world.
To entice is Strong’s G1185, δελεάζω deleazo, ‘to bait, lure,’ as in casting a worm on a hook to catch a fish.
Thus, they become entangled in defilements again:
To entangle is Strong’s G1707, ἐμπλέκω empleko, ‘to entwine, entangle,’ as in laying a net or a snare to catch prey unaware.
To avoid being made a prey, do not forsake the way of righteousness, laid out for us in the Law of God.
My son, if you receive My words, and treasure My commands within you … then you will understand the fear of YHVH, and find the knowledge of God. For YHVH gives wisdom; from His mouth come knowledge and understanding. He stores up sound wisdom for the upright; He is a shield to those who walk uprightly. He guards the paths of justice, and preserves the way of His saints. … When wisdom enters your heart, and knowledge is pleasant to your soul, discretion will preserve you; understanding will keep you, to deliver you from the way of evil, from the man who speaks perverse things, from those who leave the paths of uprightness to walk in the ways of darkness. Pro 2:1, 5-8, 10-13
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