For his divine power has given us every requisite for life and piety, through our coming to know him who through his glory and excellence called us to him.

For this very reason make every effort to supplement your faith with goodness, goodness with knowledge,

For if you have these qualities in their fulness, they will make you neither idle nor unproductive when it comes to the understanding of our Lord Jesus Christ.

For whoever lacks these qualities is blind or near-sighted, and has forgotten that he has been cleansed from his former sins.

Therefore, brothers, make all the greater efforts to make God's call and choice of you certain. For if you have these qualities, you will never stumble,

for then you will be triumphantly admitted to the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

for I know that I must soon put it away, as our Lord Jesus Christ has shown me.

For they were no fictitious stories that we followed when we informed you of the power of our Lord Jesus Christ and of his coming, but we had been eye-witnesses of his majesty.

For when he was so honored and glorified by God the Father and from the supreme glory there were borne to him such words as these: "This is my Son, my Beloved! He is my Chosen!"??18 we heard these words borne from heaven when we were with him on that sacred mountain.

for no prophecy ever originated in the human will, but under the influence of the holy Spirit men spoke for God.

For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but plunged them into Tartarus, and committed them to dark dungeons to await their doom,

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,

against whom even angels far superior to these beings in strength and power bring no abusive charge before the Lord.

suffering wrong as the reward for their wrongdoing. They find pleasure in the indulgence of the moment; they are a stain and a disgrace, and they revel in their deceit while they join in your religious meals.

They have eyes for nobody but adulterous women??yes insatiable in sin. They lure unsteadfast souls. Their hearts are trained in greed. They are accursed!

but he was rebuked for his offense; a dumb animal spoke with a human voice and checked the prophet's madness.

promising them freedom when they are themselves slaves of destruction; for a man is the slave of whatever overcomes him.

For if after men have escaped the corrupting influences of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they again become entangled in them and are overcome by them, their final condition is worse than their former one.

For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of uprightness than after knowing it to have turned their backs upon the sacred command with which they had been intrusted.

and saying, "Where is his promised coming? For ever since our forefathers fell asleep everything has remained as it was from the beginning of creation!"

For they wilfully ignore the fact that long ago there existed heavens and an earth which had been formed at God's command out of water and by water,

But by the same command the present heavens and earth are stored up for fire, and are kept for the day when godless men are to be judged and destroyed.

Therefore, dear friends, while waiting for this, make every effort to be found by him unstained, irreproachable, and at peace.