2 Peter 2:14

2:14 Their eyes, ¹  full of adultery, ²  never stop sinning; ³  they entice ⁴  unstable people. ⁵  They have trained their hearts for greed, these cursed children! ⁶ 

2 Peter 3:16

3:16 speaking of these things in all his letters. ⁷  Some things in these letters ⁸  are hard to understand, things ⁹  the ignorant and unstable twist ¹⁰  to their own destruction, as they also do to the rest of the scriptures. ¹¹ 

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¹ tn Grk “having eyes.” See note on “men” at the beginning of v. 12.

² tn Grk “full of an adulteress.”

³ tn Grk “and unceasing from sin.” Some translate this “insatiable for sin,” but such a translation is based on a textual variant with inadequate support.

⁴ tn Grk “enticing.” See note on “men” at the beginning of v. 12.

⁵ tn “People” is literally “souls.” The term ψυχή (yuch) can refer to one’s soul, one’s life, or oneself.

⁶ tn Grk “having hearts trained in greediness, children of cursing.” The participles continue the general description of the false teachers, without strong grammatical connection. The genitive κατάρας (kataras, “of cursing”) is taken attributively here.

⁷ tn Grk “as also in all his letters speaking in them of these things.”

⁸ tn Grk “in which are some things hard to understand.”

⁹ tn Grk “which.” The antecedent is the “things hard to understand,” not the entirety of Paul’s letters. A significant principle is seen here: The primary proof texts used for faith and practice ought to be the clear passages that are undisputed in their meaning. Heresy today is still largely built on obscure texts.

¹⁰ tn Or “distort,” “wrench,” “torture” (all are apt descriptions of what heretics do to scripture).

¹¹ sn This one incidental line, the rest of the scriptures, links Paul’s writings with scripture. This is thus one of the earliest affirmations of any part of the NT as scripture. Peter’s words were prophetic and were intended as a preemptive strike against the heretics to come.