AUV(i)
13 They suffer wrong themselves for doing wrong to other people. They consider it [especially] pleasurable to carry on their drunken revellings, [even] during the daytime. They become blots and blemishes [i.e., like spoiled food] in your fellowship meal, as they revel in their deceitful behavior.
14 Their eyes are filled with sexual lust, and they are never satisfied when it comes to sinning. They entice unstable people and have hearts trained to be greedy [i.e., they continually desire the possessions of others]. [In this condition] they are under God’s curse.
15 They strayed away [from God] by taking the wrong road like Balaam, the son of Bosor did, who loved the reward for doing wrong.
16 But Balaam was rebuked for his own wrongdoing by a speechless donkey, who spoke out in a man’s voice and prevented the prophet from continuing his foolishness.
17 Such people are like springs that give no water and clouds driven by the winds. [Only] the blackest darkness awaits them.
18 [Although] their talk is big, what they say is worthless, and by [offering people] fleshly desires [i.e., sexual gratification], they lead people astray, who are barely escaping from the error of the world.
19 [Although] these people promise “liberty,” they themselves are slaves to corrupting influences, for people are slaves to whatever controls them.
20 For if people who have escaped from the defiling practices of the world by coming to know our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, become tangled up in them again, and are overcome by them, these people are worse off than before they were converted.
21 It would have been better for them if they had not known the right way [to God] than, after knowing it, to turn back from the sacred message that had been presented to them.
22 It has happened to them like the true proverb [says], “The dog [throws up, and then] goes back and eats its own vomit,” and “The hog that was all cleaned up [goes back] to wallowing in the mud.”