This is the sharpest paragraph in the letter, and it should be read as a warning and as a mirror. Peter describes false teachers who fed on the church while they led it astray, and the description is vivid because it was meant to be recognized.
10"Bold and willful, they do not tremble as they blaspheme the glorious ones." The false teachers mocked spiritual powers with a confidence that even angels do not show, and their swagger toward things they do not understand is the first mark. 12"Like irrational animals, creatures of instinct." Peter's picture is of people who let appetite govern everything and so sank below what they were made to be.
13"They feast with you." The last clause is chilling. They sit at the church's table, eat the shared meal, and take part in the life of the community while they serve something else. 14"Hearts trained in greed." The Greek for trained, *gymnazo*, is the word for athletic exercise, the root of our gymnasium. A heart can be exercised in greed the way a body is exercised for a race. Paul uses the same word when he tells Timothy to train himself for godliness. Habits train a heart in one direction or the other.
Peter holds up Balaam as a mirror, a hired prophet restrained by a speechless donkey. The love of gain makes prophets foolish enough to be corrected by an animal.
17"Waterless springs and mists driven by a storm." The picture is familiar from the Bible's desert geography. A traveler reaches a spring, and it is dry. A mist promises rain and is blown away. The false teachers advertise refreshment and deliver none.
Then Peter explains how they attract followers. 19"They promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption. For whatever overcomes a person, to that he is enslaved." The last sentence is a principle that applies far beyond these teachers. The Greek verb for overcomes, *hettaomai*, belongs to the battlefield and means to be defeated. Whatever defeats you becomes your master. The teachers sold liberty, and they were in chains. It is the opposite of the verb John used in 1 John 5 for everyone born of God who overcomes the world.
The passage ends with its darkest words, the proverb of the dog and the sow. The Bible Speaks Today commentary reads the sow as the harshest statement in the letter. The washing was outward, and the nature was never changed.
Two cautions belong beside it. Peter describes teachers who made a practice of leading others into ruin, and he leaves out the believer who stumbles and is sorry. The same letter says such a person has been cleansed (1:9) and offers Lot, grieved by his surroundings (2:7-8). The passage also works as a mirror. Ask what you are being trained in, and where you were sold a spring that turned out to be dry.
Prayer
Father, keep your church from teachers who promise freedom and deliver slavery. Train our hearts for godliness and not for greed, and keep us from being overcome by what we yield to. Keep us close to your Son, and cleanse us when we stumble. In Jesus' name, amen.