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.

Yes, I will make every effort that you may always be able to remember these things even after my departure.

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 turned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, overthrew them, damned them, and made of them an example unto all 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, living among them, tormented his righteous soul in seeing and hearing, day after day, their lawless deeds),

but chiefly those who walk after the flesh in the lust of defilement, and despise authority. Daring, self-willed, they are not afraid to speak evil of dignitaries;

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 defilement of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in it and overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first.

For it would be better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after knowing it, to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to 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 scoffers will come, mocking and walking after their own lusts,

walking after their own lusts, and saying, Where is the declaration of his coming? for except that the fathers are fallen asleep, all things remain as they were from the beginning of the creation.