By these he has granted his promises to us, precious and splendid; so that through them you may become partners of the divine nature, now that you have escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.

For if these virtues are yours in abounding measure, they render you not idle nor unfruitful, until you come into the full knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

For the man who lacks these virtues is blind, short-sighted, forgetful of his cleansing from his old sins.

So I will do my best to enable you, even after my departure, continually to call these things to mind.

But there were false prophets, too, among the people, just as among you also there will be false teachers. These will secretly bring in destructive sects, denying even the Master who bought them, and bringing swift ruin upon themselves.

But these men, like irrational creatures, mere animals, born to be taken and destroyed, continually rail about matters of which they know nothing. In their corruption they will surely be destroyed,

suffering wrong as the wage of wrong which they have done. These are men who count it pleasure to carouse in open daylight; they are spots and blemishes reveling in their deceit, even while they are feasting with you.

And so, beloved, since you are looking for these things, continually give diligence that you may be found in peace, unspotted and blameless in his sight.

It is the same in all his letters when he speaks of these things. There are indeed some things in his letters hard to understand, which the ignorant and the shifty wrest, as also they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction.

Do you therefore, beloved, because you know these things beforehand, be on your guard lest you be led astray by the error of the wicked, and so fall from your own stedfastness.