For [if] these [things] are yours and are increasing, this does not make [you] useless or unproductive in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

recognizing this above all, that every prophecy of scripture does not come about from one's own interpretation,

In covetousness they will exploit you with deceptive words: whose sentence now from of old does not linger, and their destruction is not asleep.

The Lord is not slow about his promise, in the sense that some men think; he is really showing his patience with you, because he does not want any to perish, but wishes all men to be brought to repentance.

Then all these things being dissolved, what kind of people does it behoove you to be in holy deportment and godliness,

speaking of it as he does in all his letters. There are some things in them hard to understand, which ignorant, unsteadfast people twist to their own ruin, just as they do the rest of the Scriptures.