2nd Peter Chapter 2 verse 21 Holy Bible
For it were better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after knowing it, to turn back from the holy commandment delivered unto them.
read chapter 2 in ASV
For it would have been better for them to have had no knowledge of the way of righteousness, than to go back again from the holy law which was given to them, after having knowledge of it.
read chapter 2 in BBE
For it were better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known [it] to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them.
read chapter 2 in DARBY
For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them.
read chapter 2 in KJV
read chapter 2 in WBT
For it would be better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after knowing it, to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them.
read chapter 2 in WEB
for it were better to them not to have acknowledged the way of the righteousness, than having acknowledged `it', to turn back from the holy command delivered to them,
read chapter 2 in YLT
Pulpit Commentary
Pulpit CommentaryVerse 21. - For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness; better, as in the Revised Version, for it were better. (For this use of the imperfect indicative, see Winer, 3:41, 2, a.) The verb ἐπεγνωκέκαι, "to have known," here, and the participle ἐπιγνοῦσιν, "after they have known," in the next clause, correspond with the noun ἐπίγνωσις of the preceding, and, like that, imply that these unhappy men once had the full knowledge of Christ. (For "the way, of righteousness," compare "the way of truth" in verse 2, and note there.) Than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them. The manuscripts exhibit some slight variations here: the Sinaitic and Alexandrine give "to turn back." By "the holy commandment" St. Peter means the whole moral Law, which the Lord enforced and widened in his sermon on the mount; from this the false teachers turned away. For the word "delivered" (παραδοθείσης), comp. Jude 1:3. Like the corresponding word παράδοσις, tradition (2 Thessalonians 3:6), it implies the oral transmission of Christian teaching in the first ages (comp. also 1 Peter 1:18).
Ellicott's Commentary
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(21) It had been better for them not to have known.--There are many things of which the well-known lines."'Tis better to have loved and lost,Than never to have loved at all,"do not hold good. To have loved a great truth, to have loved a high principle, and after all to lose them, is what often causes the shipwreck of a life. To have loved Jesus Christ and lost Him is to make shipwreck of eternal life.The way of righteousness.--The life of the Christian. That which from a doctrinal point of view is "the way of truth" (2Peter 2:2), from a moral point of view is "the way of righteousness." So also "the faith delivered to the saints" of Jude 1:3, is the doctrinal equivalent of "the holy commandment delivered unto them" of this verse.
