Verses 17-22 further describe the foolish teachers and stress their inevitable doom.
These is emphatic and refers to the false teachers, and this information can be included in translation (for example, Good News Translation “These men”). This verse has similarities with Jude 12-13; however, instead of “waterless clouds carried along by winds” (see Jude 12), Peter compares the false teachers to waterless springs and mists driven by a storm. This actually consists of two metaphors from nature, but each with the same message: there is a great difference between expectation and fulfillment. The word for “spring” includes “water” as one component of its meaning and refers to a living fountain. Many languages have words for a “spring,” but in some it will be necessary to describe it and say, for example, “a place where water pours out of the ground or rock.” Waterless indicates the actual state of the spring, which is contrary to what is really expected. So waterless springs may be expressed as “springs have no water” or “places where water should pour forth, but it doesn’t.”
The same is the case with the mists. There are several possible grounds of comparison that may be intended here.
1. Some have suggested that it is the ease with which the mists are blown away by the storm, indicating how easily the false teachers will be destroyed.
2. Another suggestion is that the focus here is the quality of darkness that characterizes the mist, and which therefore indicates obscurity and instability.
3. A further suggestion is that the focus here is on the function of mists: they are supposed to refresh the ground, especially during the dry seasons; but here instead they are driven (away) by a storm and therefore never get a chance to provide moisture. The word for storm indicates a whirlwind or a hurricane (or typhoon), characterized by violent winds.
This third possibility seems preferable, since it connects the second metaphor with the first. Both figures therefore indicate the uselessness and worthlessness of the false teachers, together with their teaching, despite all the promises that they have made. In certain languages mists driven by a storm may be translated as “clouds that suffer storm blow along,” “clouds that the storm or hurricane or typhoon drives along,” or “clouds that violent winds drive away.”
It should be noted that Revised Standard Version retains the metaphor form, that is, These are waterless springs …. It may be advisable and even necessary to change the metaphor into a simile (that is, “These … are like…”) as Good News Translation has done; it is important, however, to make sure that the impact of the passage is not lost if this is done.
Due to the wickedness of the false teachers, their punishment is certain. The nether gloom of darkness is a description of Sheol, the world of the dead. (For a further discussion of this term, see comments on Jude 13.) As in Jude 13, the passive construction here is a divine passive, with God as the unnamed agent, a fact made clear in Good News Translation. “Sheol” of course refers to a place below the earth; this may be relevant in some languages. However, in languages where this information is difficult to include, the element of “deep darkness” may be sufficient to describe the place where the false teachers are destined to go. Therefore for them the nether gloom of darkness has been reserved may also be rendered as “God has prepared a place for them in deepest darkness,” “God has prepared for them a place that is completely covered by thick darkness,” “… a place of darkness where there is no light at all,” or “the world of the dead which is covered by thick darkness.”
Quoted with permission from Arichea, Daniel C. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on The Second Letter from Peter. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1980. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .