2 And many will follow their destructive ways, because of whom the way of truth will be blasphemed.
3 By covetousness they will exploit you with deceptive words; for a long time their judgment has not been idle, and their destruction1 does not slumber.
Doom of False Teachers
4 For if God did not spare the angels who sinned, but cast them down to1 hell and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved for judgment;
5 and did not spare the ancient world, but saved Noah, oneof eight people, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood on the world of the ungodly;
6 and turning the cities of aSodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemned them to destruction, making them an example to those who afterward would live ungodly;
7 and adelivered righteous Lot, whowas oppressed by the filthy conduct of the wicked
8 (for that righteous man, dwelling among them, atormented his righteous soul from day to day by seeing and hearing their lawless deeds)—
9thenathe Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptations and to reserve the unjust under punishment for the day of judgment,
10 and especially athose who walk according to the flesh in the lust of uncleanness and despise authority. bTheyare presumptuous, self-willed. They are not afraid to speak evil of1 dignitaries,
11 whereas aangels, who are greater in power and might, do not bring a reviling accusation against them before the Lord.
Depravity of False Teachers
12 But these, alike natural brute beasts made to be caught and destroyed, speak evil of the things they do not understand, and will utterly perish in their own corruption,
13aand will receive the wages of unrighteousness, as those who count it pleasure bto carouse in the daytime. cTheyare spots and blemishes, carousing in their own deceptions while dthey feast with you,
14 having eyes full of1 adultery and that cannot cease from sin, enticing unstable souls. aThey have a heart trained in covetous practices, andare accursed children.
15 They have forsaken the right way and gone astray, following the way of aBalaam the son of Beor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness;
16 but he was rebuked for his iniquity: a dumb donkey speaking with a man’s voice restrained the madness of the prophet.
17aThese are wells without water,1 clouds carried by a tempest, for whom is reserved the blackness of darkness2 forever.
Deceptions of False Teachers
18 For when they speak great swelling words of emptiness, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, through lewdness, the ones who1 have actually escaped from those who live in error.
19 While they promise them liberty, they themselves are slaves of1 corruption; afor by whom a person is overcome, by him also he is brought into2 bondage.
20 For if, after they ahave escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are bagain entangled in them and overcome, the latter end is worse for them than the beginning.
21 For ait would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered to them.
22 But it has happened to them according to the true proverb: a“A dog returns to his own vomit,” and, “a sow, having washed, to her wallowing in the mire.”
God's unbending justice did not spare the sinful angels; He has not pardoned their sins but has delayed their punishment. "Hell" translates tartaroo, a place of restraint at the verge of this material world, not Sheol or Hades. Cast down from heaven to earth, the demons are restricted to their domain, bound in "chains of darkness," whether chains or an underground silo, and can do only what God allows. Earth itself is their prison, shared with humanity, whom they regard as intruders. Their appointed judgment still awaits them, and since "the wages of sin is death" and "the soul who sins shall die," without repentance only their own deaths, not eternal imprisonment, will cover their terrible sins.
2 Peter 2:4
God is unbending in regard to His law. Peter shows this by illustrating that it does not matter who sins or when he sins. Before God ever created man, angels broke the law of God. God, being just and holy, could do only one thing. Because He cannot permit sin to abide in His Kingdom, He had to follow through with the punishment.
"Hell" comes from the Greek tartaroo, and it means "a place of restraint." God did not spare the angels, but He cast them down to a place of restraint, a kind of prison.
In Greek mythology, Tartarus was the lowest hell, the place where the Titans (who were defeated by Zeus) were restrained. It is described as being as far below Hades as heaven is high above the earth. As far as we can apply Greek mythology, we can understand that these angels were cast so far down as to be out of sight. Their place of restraint was so far down that one would think they would never be able to crawl out.
God is trying to get across that the angels have been defeated—cast down from heaven to the earth, as Revelation 12 shows. The earth, then, is a place of restraint, a prison, for them.
To add to the imagery, they are bound in "chains of darkness." This amplifies the thought that Peter is making: The demons are restrained. There is some disagreement among scholars whether Peter uses the word that is translated here as "chains" or whether he means "silo." Almost everyone understands what a silo is. To an American, it is a tall, cylindrical object in which grain is stored. To the Greek, a silo was an underground pit where grain was stored. Whether it is a chain or a silo, it does not matter. God is trying to assure us that the demons have been restrained.
They are being restrained because they are facing judgment. Unfortunately for us, they are restrained in the place where we live! The earth is the silo, the storage bin. We are sharing this place with them. Worse, as they would see it, we are intruders in their space. They consider us invaders.
When God cast them back down to earth, He placed restrictions on their powers and limited them to "their proper domain" or "first estate," that is, the earth. Here, they await their judgment for their rebellion. "Hell" in II Peter 2:4 is tartaroo, a place of restraint for the wicked. Though Satan himself may appear before God's throne in heaven, he and his demons can do only what God allows (Job 1:6-12; 2:1-7).
Regarding “the angels who sinned”, the Bible asserts that “God did not spare” them, meaning that He has not pardoned their sins, just delayed their punishment. The verse goes on to say that, in the meantime, He has “cast them down to hell [tartaroo] and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved for judgment.”
E.W. Bullinger writes that their prison, Tartarus, “is not Sheol or Hades, . . . [but] denotes the bounds or verge of this material world” (A Critical Lexicon and Concordance to the English and Greek New Testament, “hell,” p. 370). Tartarus, then, is a holding place—this material world—where the demons are awaiting their final judgment. Their ultimate penalty is not “chains of darkness” or “everlasting chains under darkness” (Jude 6), but something far more permanent to be rendered in “the judgment of the great day.” This appointed time of judgment still awaits them (see Matthew 8:29).
Paul writes unambiguously that “the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). God also says in Ezekiel 18:4, 20, “The soul who sins shall die.” Scripture does not stipulate that this applies only to humans (soul means “living being”—even God is a soul; see Leviticus 26:11, 30; Isaiah 1:14; Jeremiah 6:8; Zechariah 11:8; Matthew 12:18; Hebrews 10:38; etc.), nor does God's Word ever say that sin can be paid for by a lengthy, even eternal, imprisonment (as many speculate will be the demons' fate). According to these verses, all sin requires death for expiation, and since the Bible does not indicate that demons will repent of their sins and accept Jesus Christ's death to pay for their transgressions, only their own deaths will cover their many terrible sins.
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God's unbending justice did not spare the sinful angels; He has not pardoned their sins but has delayed their punishment. "Hell" translates tartaroo, a place of restraint at the verge of this material world, not Sheol or Hades. Cast down from heaven to earth, the demons are restricted to their domain, bound in "chains of darkness," whether chains or an underground silo, and can do only what God allows. Earth itself is their prison, shared with humanity, whom they regard as intruders. Their appointed judgment still awaits them, and since "the wages of sin is death" and "the soul who sins shall die," without repentance only their own deaths, not eternal imprisonment, will cover their terrible sins.