For, when these virtues are yours, in increasing measure, they prevent your being indifferent to, or destitute of, a fuller knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

I shall, therefore, always be ready to remind you of all this, even though you know it and are firmly established in the Truth that you now hold.

The Lord, therefore, knows how to deliver the pious from temptation, and to keep the wicked, who are even now suffering punishment, in readiness for 'the Day of Judgment'--

suffering themselves, as the penalty for the suffering that they have inflicted. They think that pleasure consists in the self-indulgence of the moment. They are a stain and a disgrace, indulging, as they do, in their wanton revelry, even while joining you at your feasts.

They have eyes only for adulteresses, eyes never tired of sin; they entice weak souls; their minds are trained to covet; they live under a curse.

These men are like springs without water, or mists driven before a gale; and for them the blackest darkness has been reserved.

With boastful and foolish talk, they appeal to the passions of man's lower nature, and, by their profligacy, entice those who are just escaping from the men who live such misguided lives.

They promise them freedom, while they themselves are slaves to corrupt habits; for a man is the slave of anything to which he gives way.

If, after having escaped the polluting influences of the world, through knowing our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, men are again entangled in them, and give way to them, their last state has become worse than their first.

But the present heavens and earth, by the same fiat, have been reserved for fire, and are being kept for the day of the judgment and destruction of the godless.

Now, since all these things are in the process of dissolution, think what you yourselves ought to be--what holy and pious lives you ought to lead,

It is the same in all his letters, when he speaks in them about these subjects. There are some things in them difficult to understand, which untaught and weak people distort, just as they do all other writings, to their own Ruin.