2 Peter 2:22
But it is happened unto them according to the true proverb, The dog is turned to his own vomit again; and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire.
Study Note
Study Note
The two proverbs used to describe the apostate — 'the dog returns to its own vomit' (Proverbs 26:11) and 'the sow, after washing herself, returns to wallow in the mire' — assert that the return to sin reveals an unchanged underlying nature, which the washing (conversion or baptism) had covered but not transformed. The harsh animal imagery serves a specific rhetorical purpose: to dissuade wavering believers from being drawn back by the false teachers' promises by making the consequences of apostasy viscerally repulsive. Hebrews 6:4-6 and 10:26-31 address similar scenarios of post-conversion apostasy with equal severity, suggesting that the problem of professed faith followed by defection was a genuine pastoral crisis in early Christianity. The verse does not comment on the initial genuineness of the conversion but on the theological and moral status of the return to former patterns.
Other Translations
It has happened unto them according to the true proverb, The dog turning to his own vomit again, and the sow that had washed to wallowing in the mire.
and happened to them hath that of the true similitude; `A dog did turn back upon his own vomit,' and, `A sow having bathed herself--to rolling in mire.'
They are an example of that true saying, The dog has gone back to the food it had put out, and the pig which had been washed to its rolling in the dirty earth.