For if these things are in you and abound, they make you neither inactive nor unfruitful in gaining the full knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Wherefore I shall be careful always to remind you of these things, though ye know them, and are established in the truth that is with you.

but chiefly those who walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanness, and despise dominion. Presumptuous, selfwilled, they are not afraid to rail at dignities;

whereas angels, who are greater in strength and power, bring not against them a railing accusation;

These are wells without water, and mists driven by a tempest; for whom the blackness of darkness is reserved.

promising them liberty, while they themselves are slaves of corruption; for by what a man is overcome, by the same is he also brought into bondage.

For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein and overcome, the last state is worse with them than the first.

For of this they are willingly ignorant, that of old by the word of God there were heavens, and an earth formed out of the water and by the water,

but the present heavens and the present earth are by his word kept in store, reserved for fire against the day of judgment and the perdition of ungodly men.

But the day of the Lord will come as a thief; in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat, and the earth and the works that are therein will be burned up.

Seeing that all these things are thus to be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in holy conduct and godliness,

as also in all his letters, speaking in them of these things; in which things are some that are hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as also the other Scriptures, to their own destruction.