The sins of the false teachers are now described licentiousness (2 Peter 2:10), audacious blasphemy (2 Peter 2:10-12), open profligacy (2 Peter 2:13), and covetousness like that of Balaam (2 Peter 2:15). They are as worthless as springs without water, and their end is blackness of darkness. The whole section is based on Jude 1:8-15.* 2 P. softens the severity of Jude's language and rearranges the order. He expands the reference to Balaam and omits Cain and Korah. In 2 Peter 2:11 he omits the explicit reference to Michael, and also, at the end of 2 Peter 2:17, the passage from Enoch quoted in Jude 1:14 f. (see on 2 Peter 2:4, reserve in use of Apocrypha).
2 Peter 2:10. dominion: render, the Lordship, i.e. Christ or God (see on Jude 1:8). dignities: render, the glorious ones (cf. mg.), i.e. the heavenly beings, or the unseen powers: it is difficult to see in what sense the false teachers reviled the unseen powers, but the word can scarcely be taken to mean the rulers of the Church.
2 Peter 2:11. Paraphrase, They do not hesitate to revile the unseen powers, while even angels, who are far greater than these false teachers, do not dare to bring against these powers an irreverent accusation, in the presence of the Lord. The argument can be understood only in the light of Jude's reference to the story of Michael (Jude 1:9 *), where the forbearance of Michael is contrasted with the audacity of the false teachers. The dispute between Michael and the devil did not take place in the presence of the Lord, and the insertion of the words, which are not found in Jude, is difficult.
2 Peter 2:12. matters. ignorant: they know nothing of the Lordship or the glorious ones; they only know the things of the fleshly life.
2 Peter 2:13. suffering wrong as the hire of wrong-doing. The text is almost certainly corrupt, and presents two difficulties. (1) The writer could scarcely speak of the false teachers suffering wrong at the hands of God. (2) The phrase translated hire of wrong-doing occurs again in 2 Peter 2:15, where it means unrighteous gain. Here the context requires a different meaningpenalty of wrong doing: but it is difficult to give the same phrase two such different meanings in the same passage. Receiving the reward of unrighteousness (cf. AV) looks like a conjectural emendation, but while removing the first difficulty, it leaves the second. their love-feasts: render their deceivings (mg.); apatais (deceivings) is the reading of all MSS. except B (p. 601); agapais (love-feasts), the reading of B, followed by RV, was probably suggested by the parallel passage in Jude 1:12, where love-feasts is undoubtedly the correct reading: Jude, however, has your love-feasts not, as RV here, their love-feasts. while they feast with you: render, while they share in the feast (probably the Agape so Bigg) with you. Paraphrase, Spots and blemishes in your midst, revelling in their deceits, while continuing to share your Agape; despite their openly evil lives, they do not separate themselves from the Christian fellowship.