For it was through this that he gave us what we prize as the greatest of his promises, that through them you might participate in the divine nature, now that you have fled from the corruption in the world, resulting from human passions.

Surely the man who has not these virtues is shortsighted even to blindness, and has chosen to forget that he has been purified from his sins of the past!

For he received honour and glory from God the Father, when from the Glory of the Divine Majesty there were borne to his ears words such as these-- 'This is my Son, my Beloved, in whom I delight.'

Nor did he spare the world of old; though he preserved Noah, the Preacher of Righteousness, and seven others, when he brought a flood upon the godless world.

He condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah and reduced them to ashes, holding them up as a warning to the godless of what was in store for them;

but he rescued righteous Lot, whose heart was vexed by the wanton licentiousness of his neighbors;

for, seeing and hearing what he did, as he lived his righteous life among them, day after day, Lot's righteous soul was tortured by their wicked doings.

The Lord, therefore, knows how to deliver the pious from temptation, and to keep the wicked, who are even now suffering punishment, in readiness for 'the Day of Judgment'--

They promise them freedom, while they themselves are slaves to corrupt habits; for a man is the slave of anything to which he gives way.

In their case is seen the truth of the proverb-- 'A dog returns to what he has vomited' and 'A sow after washing to her wallowing-place in the mud.'

The Lord is not slow to fulfil his promise, as some count slowness; but he is forbearing with you, as it is not his will that any of you should perish, but that all should be brought to repentance.

It is the same in all his letters, when he speaks in them about these subjects. There are some things in them difficult to understand, which untaught and weak people distort, just as they do all other writings, to their own Ruin.