15. They have abandoned the straight way. They have gone astray. They have followed the way of Balaam the son of Beor, who loved the wages of wickedness.
16. But he received a rebuke for his own wrongdoing. A dumb donkey spoke with a man’s voice and put a stop to the prophet’s madness.
17. These people are springs without water and mists driven by a storm. The gloom of utter darkness has been reserved for them.
18. For by mouthing grandiosities that amount to nothing, they entice in sensual fleshly passions those who are barely escaping from those who live in error.
19. They promise them freedom while they themselves are slaves of corruption—for a person is a slave to whatever has overcome him.
20. For if—after escaping the world’s pollutions through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Yeshua the Messiah—they again become entangled in these things and are overcome, the end for them has become worse than the beginning.
21. For it would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than after learning about it, to turn back from the holy commandment passed on to them.