For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith virtue; and to virtue, knowledge,

For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

For whoever lacks these things is blind and shortsighted, and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins.

Therefore, brethren, be all the more eager to make your calling and election sure. For if you do these things, you will never fall;

so there will be an entrance richly provided for you into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

For we did not follow cleverly devised tales when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty.

For he received honor and glory from God the Father when the voice came to him by the Majestic Glory, saying, "This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased."

for no prophecy was ever made by the act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.

For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to pits of darkness, to be reserved for judgment;

(for by what he saw and heard that righteous man, while living among them, felt his righteous soul tormented day after day by their lawless deeds),

then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trial, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment,

suffering wrong for their wrongdoing. They count it a pleasure to revel in the daytime. They are blots and blemishes, reveling in their deceptions, as they carouse with you.

but he was rebuked for his own transgression by a donkeya beast without speechwho spoke with a man's voice and restrained the prophet's madness.

These are springs without water and mists driven by a storm; for them the blackest darkness has been reserved.

For speaking out arrogant words of vanity, they entice by fleshly desires, by sensuality, those who barely escape from the ones who live in error.

They promise them freedom, while they themselves are slaves of corruption; for whatever overcomes a man, to that he is enslaved.

For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world by the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and are overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first.

For it would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to turn away from the holy commandment handed on to them.

and saying, "Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation."

But by the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.

The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.

But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with fire, and the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up.

looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be destroyed by fire, and the elements will melt with intense heat!

But according to his promise we are looking for new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells.

Therefore, beloved, since you look for these things, be diligent to be found by him in peace, spotless and blameless.