2 Peter 2:17
What does 2 Peter 2:17 mean?
A plain-English look at 2 Peter 2:17 in WEB alongside six other public-domain English translations, with cross-references and chapter context.
What 2 Peter 2:17 means
These teachers are like springs without water—promising refreshment but delivering dust—and like mists chased by a storm—unstable, directionless, soon gone. They cannot satisfy thirsty souls because they have no living water to give. Their words may glimmer, but they lack substance. For them, “the blackness of darkness” is reserved—a chilling picture of final exclusion and judgment. Emptiness now, darkness then. The imagery unmasks both their ministry and destiny: barren in the present, condemned in the future. Follow them, and you inherit the drought and the night they embody.
Parallel translations
WEB
World English Bible · 2000These are springs without water, and mists driven by a storm; for whom the blackness of darkness hath been reserved.
KJV
King James Version · 1611These are wells without water, clouds that are carried with a tempest; to whom the mist of darkness is reserved for ever.
ASV
American Standard Version · 1901These are springs without water, and mists driven by a storm; for whom the blackness of darkness hath been reserved.
BBE
Bible in Basic English · 1949These are fountains without water, and mists before a driving storm; for whom the eternal night is kept in store.
YLT
Young's Literal Translation · 1862These are wells without water, and clouds by a tempest driven, to whom the thick gloom of the darkness to the age hath been kept;
DRA
Douay-Rheims (Challoner) · 1752These are fountains without water and clouds tossed with whirlwinds, to whom the mist of darkness is reserved.
DBY
Darby Bible · 1890These are springs without water, and mists driven by storm, to whom the gloom of darkness is reserved [for ever].
Context
After the Balaam episode, Peter reverts to metaphor to summarize the false teachers’ nature and fate. Having named their emptiness and destiny (v.17), he will next (v.18–19) explain how such empty men still gather followers: by swelling words and sensual bait, coupled with promises of freedom. This prepares the severe warning of verses 20–22 about the worse end of those who, after knowing Christ’s way, return to corruption.
v.16but he was rebuked for his own transgression: a dumb ass spake with man’s voice and stayed the madness of the prophet.
v.17This passage
v.18For, uttering great swelling words of vanity, they entice in the lusts of the flesh, by lasciviousness, those who are just escaping from them that live in error;
Cross references
Related passages from across Scripture, drawn from the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge.
- Matthew 8:12
but the sons of the kingdom shall be cast forth into the outer darkness: there shall be the weeping and the gnashing of teeth.
- Hosea 6:4
O Ephraim, what shall I do unto thee? O Judah, what shall I do unto thee? for your goodness is as a morning cloud, and as the dew that goeth early away.
- Matthew 22:13
Then the king said to the servants, Bind him hand and foot, and cast him out into the outer darkness; there shall be the weeping and the gnashing of teeth.
- Jude 1:6
And angels that kept not their own principality, but left their proper habitation, he hath kept in everlasting bonds under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.
- Job 6:14
To him that is ready to faint kindness should be showed from his friend; Even to him that forsaketh the fear of the Almighty.
- Jude 1:12
These are they who are hidden rocks in your love-feasts when they feast with you, shepherds that without fear feed themselves; clouds without water, carried along by winds; autumn trees without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots;
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