Use of the Letter of Jude by the Second Letter of Peter 47 denial in 1,16 that he and others followed cleverly devised myths (11). This is another way the author of 2 Peter connected 2,1–3,3 with the earlier part of the letter. The second participial phrase of Jude 4 says that its opponents “pervert the grace of our God into licentiousness”. Of this 2 Pet 2,2 used only the word “licentiousness” and made it plural rather than singular. The verse says that many will follow the “licentiousnesses” of the false teachers, and that on account of them the way of truth will be maligned; the latter may be an allusion to Isa 52,5 (12). The reference to the “way of truth” anticipates use of similar language in 2 Pet 2,15 and 21. Fornberg argues that licentiousness here does not have its ordinary meaning of “sexual immorality” but instead refers to the opponents’ doctrinal error (13). To me it seems more likely that it that does have its ordinary meaning and that sexual immorality is seen as a consequence of the opponents’ doctrinal error. The accusation of sexual immorality is repeated in 2,10.13-14.18; and 3,3. 2 Pet 2,3 adds that in their greed the false teachers will make a profit of the readers with false words. The accusation of greed anticipates the similar accusation in 2,14-15 (14). The first participial phrase of Jude 4 says that its opponents “long ago were designated for this condemnation”. Of this, 2 Pet 2,3 used the term “condemnation” and a slightly different form of the adverb “long ago”; here as elsewhere the author of 2 Peter shows a preference for unusual vocabulary. 2 Pet 2,3 made “condemnation” the subject of a new clause and said of the false teachers that their “condemnation, pronounced against them long ago, is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep”. Sometimes use of the present tense in this clause is seen as a failure to sustain the fiction that Peter is the author of the letter. Bauckham sees it as an intentional shift to allow direct argument with the opponents; such a shift is possible because attribution of the letter to Peter is a convention that the readers understand (15). Watson argues (11) WATSON, Invention, 106-107. (12) BAUCKHAM, Jude, 2 Peter, 242; WATSON, Invention, 109. (13) FORNBERG, Early Church, 37-38. (14) Accusations of immorality and greed were conventional in contemporary polemic and may not be reliable indications of the actual behavior of those attacked by 2 Peter. On this see L.T. JOHNSON, “The New Testament’s Anti- Jewish Slander and the Conventions of Ancient Polemic”, JBL 108 (1989) 419- 441, especially p. 432. (15) BAUCKHAM, Jude, 2 Peter, 245.