grace and peace be multiplied unto you, in the acknowledgement of God, and of Jesus our Lord;

as his divine power hath given us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who hath called us by that glory and virtue,

by which are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises; that by these ye may become partakers of a divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.

For if these be in you and abound, they will not suffer you to be idle, nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Wherefore, my brethren, be the more diligent thus to make your calling and election sure; for if ye do these things ye shall never fall.

For so an entrance shall be administered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

And I think it my duty, while I am in this tabernacle, to stir you up by way of remembrance:

And I will endeavour that after my departure also ye may always be able to call these things to remembrance.

for prophecy was not delivered of old at the will of man, but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the holy Spirit.

But there were indeed false prophets among the people of old, as there will be also among you false teachers, who will privately introduce pernicious heresies, denying even the Lord that bought them, and bringing upon themselves swift destruction,

And many will follow their pernicious tenets, on whose account the way of truth will be reproached:

and by artful speeches they will make sale of you for gain. Whose judgement is long since hastening, and their destruction doth not slumber.

For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgement; and if He spared not the old world,

and reducing the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha to ashes, condemned them to destruction, making them an example to those that should afterwards be impious;

(for that good man by seeing and hearing their crimes, when he dwelt among them, tormented his righteous soul from day to day with their

iniquitous deeds) then the Lord knoweth how to deliver the pious from temptation, and to reserve the wicked to the day of judgement to be punished:

But these men, like brute beasts naturally produced to be taken and destroyed, speaking evil of things which they do not understand, shall perish by their own corruption; receiving the reward of their unrighteousness:

having eyes full of adultery, and which cannot be restrained from sin: ensnaring unstable souls, and having a heart practised in rapine; cursed people:

These are wells without water, clouds driven by a storm, for whom thick darkness is reserved for ever.

promising them liberty, while they themselves are the slaves of corruption: for by whom any one is vanquished, by him he is also enslaved.

For if, after they had escaped the pollutions of the world, through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled and vanquished by them, their last state is worse than the first;

that ye may be mindful of the words formerly spoken by the holy prophets, and of the commandment of us the apostles of the Lord and Saviour: knowing this first,

For they are willingly ignorant of this, that by the Word of God the heavens were made of old, and the earth too from the water, and subsisting on the water.

But the heavens and the earth, that now are, by the same Word are kept in store, reserved unto fire on the day of judgement and destruction of ungodly men.

But, beloved; be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.

But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements being set on fire shall be dissolved, and the earth and the works therein shall be burnt up.

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

expecting and hastening on the coming of the day of God, whereby the heavens being set on fire shall be dissolved, and the burning elements shall be melted.

Wherefore, beloved, seeing ye expect these things, give diligence to be found of Him in peace, spotless and blameless;

as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things: in which are some things hard to be understood, which the illiterate and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, to their own destruction.

Do ye therefore, beloved, as ye know these things before, take heed least being seduced together with them by the error of the wicked, ye should fall from your own stedfastness.

But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ: to Him be glory both now and for ever. Amen.