Use of the Letter of Jude by the Second Letter of Peter 51 “Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which, in the same manner as they [i.e., the angels], indulged in sexual immorality and pursued other flesh, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire”. 2 Peter omitted any reference to other cities and to the specific nature of their sin. The latter is mentioned in general terms in 2,7 and then taken up in 2,10, which we will discuss below. The author of 2 Peter changed the main verb of Jude 7 from “serve” to “condemned”, making it clear that God was responsible for the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. 2 Peter changed the description of the destruction from “undergoing a punishment of eternal fire” to “having turned [them] to ashes”. Perhaps the author thought this was a more accurate description of the fate of the two cities. 2 Peter rewrote Jude’s “serve as an example” as “made them an example of what is coming to the ungodly”; this makes more explicit both that God is the one who made an example of Sodom and Gomorrah and how they function as an example. The author of 2 Peter replaced “serve” with the participle “made”, and used a slightly different word for “example”. The second part of 2 Peter’s third conditional clause (vv. 7-8) cites the precedent of Lot. This is another precedent for God’s salvation of the righteous. God saved the righteous Lot from the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. The salvation of Lot is not mentioned in Jude (24). The main, concluding clause of this long sentence begins in 2 Pet 2,9. If the preceding clauses are true (vv. 4-8), then God obviously knows how to rescue the godly and punish the unrighteous. The conclusion has no counterpart in Jude. However, the author of 2 Peter used material from Jude 7-8 to develop the second part of this conclusion in v. 10a. Here the author describes the unrighteous in more detail and strongly implies that the false teachers are among them. To do this the author rewrote Jude 8. Jude 8 describes its opponents as dreamers who “also defile the flesh, reject authority, and slander the glorious ones”. 2 Pet 2,10a omitted description of the opponents as “dreamers”; probably it was not appropriate as a description of the false teachers. In 2 Pet 2,10a the author replaced the first two clauses of Jude 8 with participial phrases. The author of 2 Peter replaced the first clause of Jude 8 with a participial phrase taken from Jude 7. The latter described Sodom and Gomorrah as having gone after other flesh. In 2 Pet 2,10a the author replaced the aorist participle with the present (24) Noah and Lot are also linked in Luke 17,26-30.