Inasmuch as his power divine has bestowed on us every requisite for life and piety by the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence ??4 bestowing on us thereby promises precious and supreme, that by means of them you may escape the corruption produced within the world by lust, and participate in the divine nature ??5 for this very reason, do you contrive to make it your whole concern to furnish your faith with resolution, resolution with intelligence,

Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.

And in their greed they will exploit you with false arguments and twisted doctrine. Their sentence [of condemnation which God has decreed] from a time long ago is not idle [but is still in force], and their destruction and deepening misery is not asleep [but is on its way].

For - if, God, spared not, messengers, when they sinned, but, to pits of gloom, consigning them, in the lowest hades, delivered them up to be kept, unto judgment, -

But chiefly them that walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanness, and despise government. Presumptuous are they, selfwilled, they are not afraid to speak evil of dignities.

done out of the profits of their evil-doing. Pleasure for them is revelling in open daylight ??spots and blots, with their dissipated revelling, as they carouse in your midst! ??14 their eyes are full of harlotry, insatiable for sin; their own hearts trained to lust, they beguile unsteady souls. Accursed generation!

They have eyes full of adultery, constantly looking for sin, enticing and luring away unstable souls. Having hearts trained in greed, [they are] children of a curse.

They have forsaken the right way; they have lost their way, and followed the road of Balaam, the son of Beor, who loved the wages of wrong-doing.

For when they speak great swelling words of vanity, they lure through the lusts of the flesh, by unbridled lust, the ones who were escaping from those who live in error;

For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein and overcome, the last state is become worse with them than the first.

Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts,

the Lord is not slow in regard to the promise, as certain count slowness, but is long-suffering to us, not counselling any to be lost but all to pass on to reformation,

Ye therefore, beloved, seeing ye know these things before, beware lest ye also, being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own stedfastness.