But he that hath no possession of these things, is blind, dim-sighted, sinking into oblivion of his purification from the sins of his former days.

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 this they willfully forget, that there were heavens from of old, and an earth formed out of water and amid water, by the word of God;

whence the former world was destroyed by an inundation.