It is through these that He has given us His precious and glorious promises, so that through them, after you have escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of evil desires, you may come to share in the divine nature.

Yea, I will give diligence that at every time ye may be able after my decease to call these things to remembrance.

For, not as having followed after cunningly-devised stories, did we make known to you the power and presence of our Lord Jesus Christ, but as having been made spectators of His majesty.

And many will go out of the way after their fatal errors; by means of whom the way of truth will be injuriously reviled.

And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha into ashes condemned them with an overthrow, making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly;

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 righteous man dwelling among them day after day, in the sight and hearing of their lawless deeds, it anguished his righteous soul),

but chiefly them that walk after the flesh in the lust of defilement, and despise dominion. Daring, self-willed, they tremble not to rail at dignities:

Turning out of the true way, they have gone wandering in error, after the way of Balaam, the son of Beor, who was pleased to take payment for wrongdoing;

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.

For it were better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after knowing it, to turn back from the holy commandment delivered unto them.

In their case it has happened according to the true proverb, The dog returns again to his own vomit, and The sow, after washing, to her wallowing in the mire.

knowing this first, that in the last days mockers shall come with mockery, walking after their own lusts,

"Why has the promise of a coming Messiah [not been fulfilled yet]? After all, since the time our ancestors died, everything has continued the same, even since the beginning of creation!"