even for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge,

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 the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure; for if ye do these things, ye will never fall.

For in this way the entrance will be richly furnished you into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

For we did not follow cunningly devised fables, when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but had been made eyewitnesses of his majesty.

For he received from God the Father honor and glory, when such a voice as this was borne to him from the excellent glory: "This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased."

For prophecy never came by the will of man; but moved by the Holy Spirit, men spoke from God.

and in covetousness will they with feigned words make merchandise of you; for whom the judgment long ago ordained lingereth not, and their destruction slumbereth not.

For if God spared not angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them over to chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment;

and turning into ashes the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, condemned them to overthrow, making them an example for those who in after time should live ungodly;

(for that righteous man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing tormented his righteous soul from day to day with their lawless deeds;)

but was rebuked for his iniquity; the dumb ass, speaking with mans voice, restrained the madness of the prophet.

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

For speaking great swelling words of vanity, they allure in the lusts of the flesh, by dissolute ways, such as were in some measure escaping from those who live in error;

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 it would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after having known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered to them.

and saying, Where is his promised coming? for, from the time when the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as then, and as they have continued from the beginning of the creation.

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.

looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, by reason of which the heavens being on fire will be dissolved, and the elements will melt with fervent heat!

But, according to his promise, we look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.

Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for these things, be diligent that ye may be found without spot and blameless before him in peace,

But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To him be the glory, both now and for ever.