His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through the full knowledge of the one who called us by his own glory and excellence.

For this very reason, you must make every effort to supplement your faith with moral character, your moral character with knowledge,

For if you possess these qualities, and if they continue to increase among you, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in attaining a full knowledge of our Lord Jesus, the Messiah.

For the person who lacks these qualities is blind and shortsighted, and has forgotten the cleansing that he has received from his past sins.

So then, my brothers, be all the more eager to make your calling and election certain, for if you keep on doing this you will never fail.

For in this way you will be generously granted entry into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus, the Messiah.

For he received honor and glory from God the Father when these words from the Majestic Glory were spoken about him: "This is my Son, whom I love. I am pleased with him."

For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but threw them into the lowest hell and imprisoned them in chains of deepest darkness, holding them for judgment;

for as long as that righteous man lived among them, day after day he was being tortured in his righteous soul by what he saw and heard in their lawless actions

then the Lord knows how to rescue godly people from their trials and to hold unrighteous people for punishment on the day of judgment,

suffering harm as punishment for their wrongdoing. They take pleasure in wild parties in broad daylight. They are stains and blemishes, reveling in their deceitful pleasures while they eat with you.

They have left the straight path and wandered off to follow the path of Bosor's son Balaam, who loved the reward he got for doing wrong.

But he was rebuked for his offense. A donkey that normally cannot talk spoke with a human voice and restrained the prophet's insanity.

These men are dried-up springs, mere clouds driven by a storm. Gloomy darkness is reserved for them.

Promising them freedom, they themselves are slaves to depravity, for a person is a slave to whatever conquers him.

For if, after escaping the world's corruptions through a full knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus, the Messiah, they are again entangled and conquered by those corruptions, then their last condition is worse than their former one.

It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness than to know it and turn their backs on the holy commandment that was committed to them.

Now by that same word, the present heavens and earth have been reserved for fire and are being kept for the day when ungodly people will be judged and destroyed.

But the Day of the Lord will come like a thief. On that day the heavens will disappear with a roaring sound, the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything done on it will be exposed.

as you look forward to and hasten the coming of the day of God, when the heavens will be set ablaze and dissolved and the elements will melt with fire.