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,

The Lord is not delaying the promise, as some consider slowness, but is being patient toward you, [because he] does not want any to perish, but all to come to repentance.

as [he does] also in all his letters, speaking in them about these [things], in which there are some [things] hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable distort to their own destruction, as [they] also [do] the rest of the scriptures.