Discovery Box2 Peter 2:14 
Context2:14 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 2:18-20
Context2:18 For by speaking high-sounding but empty words 7 they are able to entice, 8 with fleshly desires and with debauchery, 9 people 10 who have just escaped 11 from those who reside in error. 12 2:19 Although these false teachers promise 13 such people 14 freedom, they themselves are enslaved to 15 immorality. 16 For whatever a person succumbs to, to that he is enslaved. 17 2:20 For if after they have escaped the filthy things 18 of the world through the rich knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, 19 they 20 again get entangled in them and succumb to them, 21 their last state has become worse for them than their first.
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 “high-sounding words of futility.”
8 tn Grk “they entice.”
9 tn Grk “with the lusts of the flesh, with debauchery.”
10 tn Grk “those.”
11 tn Or “those who are barely escaping.”
12 tn Or “deceit.”
13 tn Verse 19 is a subordinate clause in Greek. The masculine nominative participle “promising” (ἐπαγγελλόμενοι, epangellomenoi) refers back to the subject of vv. 17-18. At the same time, it functions subordinately to the following participle, ὑπάρχοντες (Juparconte", “while being”).
14 tn Grk “them.”
15 tn Grk “slaves of.” See the note on the word “slave” in 1:1.
16 tn Or “corruption,” “depravity.” Verse 19 constitutes a subordinate clause to v. 18 in Greek. The main verbal components of these two verses are: “uttering…they entice…promising…being (enslaved).” The main verb is (they) entice. The three participles are adverbial and seem to indicate an instrumental relation (by uttering), a concessive relation (although promising), and a temporal relation (while being [enslaved]). For the sake of English usage, in the translation of the text this is broken down into two sentences.
17 tn Grk “for by what someone is overcome, to this he is enslaved.”
18 tn Grk “defilements”; “contaminations”; “pollutions.”
19 sn Through the rich knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The implication is not that these people necessarily knew the Lord (in the sense of being saved), but that they were in the circle of those who had embraced Christ as Lord and Savior.
20 tn Grk “(and/but) they.”
21 tn Grk “they again, after becoming entangled in them, are overcome by them.”
