Through these things he has bestowed on us his precious and most magnificent promises, so that by means of what was promised you may become partakers of the divine nature, after escaping the worldly corruption that is produced by evil desire.

For he that lacketh these things is blind, seeing only what is near, having forgotten the cleansing from his old sins.

and if he condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah and destroyed them by burning them to ashes, making them an example to ungodly people of what is going to happen to them;

and saved the upright Lot who was so distressed by the immoral conduct of unprincipled men??8 for as long as that upright man lived among them, day after day his upright soul was tormented by what he saw and heard of their lawless actions??9 then the Lord knows how to rescue God-fearing people from trial and to punish wrongdoers while they are being kept for the Day of Judgment,

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

and these, as irrational natural beasts, made to be caught and destroyed -- in what things they are ignorant of, speaking evil -- in their destruction shall be destroyed,

[Although] their talk is big, what they say is worthless, and by [offering people] fleshly desires [i.e., sexual gratification], they lead people astray, who are barely escaping from the error of the world.

And they promise them freedom, although they are themselves the slaves of what is corrupt. For a man is the slave of any one by whom he has been worsted in fight.

Their case is that described in the true proverb, "A dog returns to what he has vomited," and also in the other proverb, "The sow has washed itself and now goes back to roll in its filth."

to remember the words spoken to you in the past by the holy prophets, and what the Lord and Savior commanded you through your apostles.

and, asking, "What has become of His promised Return? For from the time our forefathers fell asleep all things continue as they have been ever since the creation of the world."

The Lord does not delay [as though He were unable to act] and is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is [extraordinarily] patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.

Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness,

Regard our Lord's forbearance as your one hope of Salvation. This is what our dear Brother Paul wrote to you, with the wisdom that God gave him.

That is what he says in all his letters, when speaking in them of these things. In those letters there are some statements hard to understand, which ill-taught and unprincipled people pervert, just as they do the rest of the Scriptures, to their own ruin.