Bible Strands
2 Peter 2:6
if He condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to destruction, reducing them to ashes as an example of what is coming on the ungodly;
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — Peter writes to a Christian community confronting false teachers, structuring his warning as a conditional series that moves from past judgments to present and future consequences. He positions this verse between his references to the flood and the rescue of Lot to frame divine justice as consistent across history.
The words — τεφρώσας (tephrōsas) means having reduced to ashes, and καταστροφῆς (katastrophēs) denotes destruction or overthrow. These terms describe the physical annihilation of Sodom and Gomorrah as a concrete historical event.
The thread — The text points to the same destruction recorded in Genesis 19, echoed in Jude 1:7 regarding their sexual immorality, Luke 17:28 describing their daily life before the fall, and Deuteronomy 29:23 comparing the resulting landscape to a burning waste of sulfur and salt.
Why it lands — The passage demands recognition that divine judgment is both certain and historically documented, requiring readers to treat the warning of future destruction as a serious, non-negotiable reality rather than a metaphor. It compels immediate alignment with righteousness before the stated outcome arrives.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Greek words
King James Version
And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha into ashes condemned them with an overthrow, making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly;
Cross-references
- Jude 1:7 In like manner, Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, who indulged in sexual immorality and pursued strange flesh, are on display as an example of those who sustain the punishment of eternal fire.
- Luke 17:28 It was the same in the days of Lot: People were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building.
- Deuteronomy 29:23 All its soil will be a burning waste of sulfur and salt, unsown and unproductive, with no plant growing on it, just like the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which the LORD overthrew in His fierce anger.
- Genesis 19:24 Then the LORD rained down sulfur and fire on Sodom and Gomorrah—from the LORD out of the heavens.
- Numbers 26:10 And the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them along with Korah, whose followers died when the fire consumed 250 men. They serve as a warning sign.
- Isaiah 13:19 And Babylon, the jewel of the kingdoms, the glory of the pride of the Chaldeans, will be overthrown by God like Sodom and Gomorrah.
- Jeremiah 50:40 As God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah along with their neighbors,” declares the LORD, “no one will dwell there; no man will abide there.
- Zephaniah 2:9 Therefore, as surely as I live,” declares the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, “surely Moab will be like Sodom and the Ammonites like Gomorrah—a place of weeds and salt pits, a perpetual wasteland. The remnant of My people will plunder them; the remainder of My nation will dispossess them.”
- 1 Corinthians 10:11 Now these things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come.
- Genesis 19:28 He looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah and all the land of the plain, and he saw the smoke rising from the land like smoke from a furnace.