2 Peter 2:13
What does 2 Peter 2:13 mean?
A plain-English look at 2 Peter 2:13 in WEB alongside six other public-domain English translations, with cross-references and chapter context.
What 2 Peter 2:13 means
They will receive the pay their deeds deserve: the harm they inflict becomes the harm they suffer. Shameless, they make daytime parties their delight, revealing a conscience gone dull. Worse, they bring their deceits to the church’s own meals, turning fellowship into a stage for seduction and self-indulgence. Peter calls them “spots and blemishes,” stains on the community’s holiness. Pleasure is not the problem; perversion is—pleasure displaced from God and neighbor-love to self and lust. Such leaders corrode trust, defile worship, and ensure their own bitter harvest.
Parallel translations
WEB
World English Bible · 2000suffering wrong as the hire of wrong-doing; men that count it pleasure to revel in the day-time, spots and blemishes, revelling in their deceivings while they feast with you;
KJV
King James Version · 1611And shall receive the reward of unrighteousness, as they that count it pleasure to riot in the day time. Spots they are and blemishes, sporting themselves with their own deceivings while they feast with you;
ASV
American Standard Version · 1901suffering wrong as the hire of wrong-doing; men that count it pleasure to revel in the day-time, spots and blemishes, revelling in their deceivings while they feast with you;
BBE
Bible in Basic English · 1949For the evil which overtakes them is the reward of their evil-doing: such men take their pleasure in the delights of the flesh even in the daytime; they are like the marks of a disease, like poisoned wounds among you, feasting together with you in joy;
YLT
Young's Literal Translation · 1862about to receive a reward of unrighteousness, pleasures counting the luxury in the day, spots and blemishes, luxuriating in their deceits, feasting with you,
DRA
Douay-Rheims (Challoner) · 1752Receiving the reward of their injustice, counting for a pleasure the delights of a day: stains and spots, sporting themselves to excess, rioting in their feasts with you:
DBY
Darby Bible · 1890receiving [the] reward of unrighteousness; accounting ephemeral indulgence pleasure; spots and blemishes, rioting in their own deceits, feasting with you;
Context
Peter moves from animal imagery to concrete behavior: public revelry and deceit within communal feasts, likely the believers’ shared meals. This shows the teachers’ corruption is not outside the church’s orbit but at its tables. Verse 14 will continue to expose their predatory gaze, their relentless sinning, and their covetous training, escalating the sense of danger before invoking Balaam as a scriptural parallel in verses 15–16.
v.12But these, as creatures without reason, born mere animals to be taken and destroyed, railing in matters whereof they are ignorant, shall in their destroying surely be destroyed,
v.13This passage
v.14having eyes full of adultery, and that cannot cease from sin; enticing unstedfast souls; having a heart exercised in covetousness; children of cursing;
Cross references
Related passages from across Scripture, drawn from the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge.
- 2 Timothy 4:14
Alexander the coppersmith did me much evil: the Lord will render to him according to his works:
- 1 Peter 4:4
wherein they think it strange that ye run not with them into the same excess of riot, speaking evil of you:
- Ephesians 5:27
that he might present the church to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.
- Romans 13:13
Let us walk becomingly, as in the day; not in revelling and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and jealousy.
- 2 Peter 2:15
forsaking the right way, they went astray, having followed the way of Balaam the son of Beor, who loved the hire of wrong-doing;
- Song of Solomon 4:7
Thou art all fair, my love; And there is no spot in thee.
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