The Calvinist ESV 2 Peter 2:12, 14

 I am breaking the "A Random Verse That Destroys Calvinism (And 'Is the ESV a Calvinist Bible'?)" post up into shorter segments so that each verse (or two) gets it own post.

#40:  The end of 2 Peter 2:12 in the KJV reads "... and shall utterly perish in their own corruption," emphasizing that the people brought on their destruction by their own corruption.  

But the ESV says "... will also be destroyed in their destruction," which is just redundant, saying that they'll be destroyed in their destruction (well, duh, of course destruction will destroy you!), taking away the idea of personal responsibility, that they brought their destruction on themselves because of their own corruption.  

Strong's concordance defines the word used for "destruction/corruption" as "corruption, destruction, decay, rottenness, decomposition."  And it says that 2 Peter 2:12 is speaking of moral decay.  So it's not just that they are destroyed because of their destruction (which really makes no sense), but because of their own moral decay.  And this is more in line with free-will than Calvinism. 

#41:  Personal responsibility is also downplayed in 2 Peter 2:14.  The KJV says that the people have a "heart they have exercised with covetous practices."  But the ESV simply says "they have hearts trained in greed."  The KJV is clear that the people trained their hearts, but the ESV simply says they have hearts which are trained.  

But by whom?  

Once again, in Calvinism, God gives you the heart He wants you to have, which comes with the desires He wants you to have, which causes you to choose what you choose.  And this verse, in Calvinism, could simply mean that they were given hearts (from God) trained to be greedy (preset to be greedy) so that they would choose to be greedy.  Whereas in the KJV, it's clear that the people trained their own hearts to be greedy.  Small difference in wording, big difference in implications.   

A note about the ESV vs King James:

            If you really want to get into the nitty-gritty, read these articles about the men who wrote the Greek texts that the ESV is based on: "Westcott and Hort: Translator's Beliefs" and "Westcott and Hort and the Greek Text."  The ESV is based on the RSV, which is based on the Greek Texts of these two men (who, it sounds like, rejected the infallibility of Scripture, despised evangelicals, questioned Jesus's divinity and an eternal hell, did not believe Genesis and the creation story was literal, affirmed Darwin and evolution, etc.), which is based on two corrupted manuscripts which differ from the majority of the more reliable manuscripts that the KJV is based on.  

            So when something says that the ESV has only made 6% changes, it means "from the RSV," meaning that it's 94% the same as the RSV it was based on, a translation which was based on two corrupted manuscripts that disagree with the majority of the manuscripts available.  It would be like if a journalist interviewed 100 people about an event ... and 95 of them said the exact same thing, but 5 told a different story ... and the journalist decided to side with the 5 and print their story as fact.  Raises some red flags, doesn't it?

            In the course of researching this issue, and after not knowing for decades what to think of the whole "which translation is most accurate" debate, I now side with the King James.  I mean, I have several other translations, and I think different ones are good for different reasons, such as readability, compare and contrast, to hear God's Word in a fresh way, etc.  But when having to decide which one is more reliable and accurate, especially considering the significant differences like those above, I have to side with the KJV (not the New King James, just the King James).  And I've never been more sure of it than now, after all this research.