may the divine favour and felicity be poured upon you, by the knowledge of God, and of our Lord Jesus Christ.

For His divine power has bestowed on us [absolutely] everything necessary for [a dynamic spiritual] life and godliness, through true and personal knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence.

(By which the greatest and precious promises are bestowed upon us: that by these ye might be having escaped from the corruption in the world through eager desires.)

For so the way will be open to you into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

we our selves heard this voice, that came from heaven, when we were with him upon the holy mountain.

And we hold the prophetic word more confirmed, to which ye do well to attend, as to a lamp shining in a dark passage, until the day dawn, and the morning-star arise upon your hearts.

But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.

And through greedy desires and deceptive words they will exploit you [for evil purposes]. But the judgment that they have had coming for a long time, will not delay, but will eventually awaken [i.e., arrive] to bring destruction upon them.

And spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly;

[This fate will come upon] those people especially who corrupt themselves with physical desires and despise being ruled by others. They are daring, self-willed, and are not afraid to speak against glorious beings [i.e., angels],

done out of the profits of their evil-doing. Pleasure for them is revelling in open daylight ??spots and blots, with their dissipated revelling, as they carouse in your midst! ??14 their eyes are full of harlotry, insatiable for sin; their own hearts trained to lust, they beguile unsteady souls. Accursed generation!

As for those who have renounc'd the pollutions of the world, by their owning Jesus Christ for their Lord and saviour, if they are prevail'd upon to be entangled therein again, their last state is worse than the first.

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 happened to them hath that of the true similitude; 'A dog did turn back upon his own vomit,' and, 'A sow having bathed herself -- to rolling in mire.'

knowing this first, that there will come in the last days open scoffers following their own lusts,

but they are wilfully ignorant, that the heavens were originally form'd by the divine Logos, and likewise the earth, which was separated from the water, and still subsists upon it.

the Lord does not delay the accomplishment of his promise, as some do imagine. but he waits with patience upon our account, as being unwilling that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will vanish with a [mighty and thunderous] roar, and the [material] elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and the works that are on it will be burned up.

Look upon our Lord's patience as salvation, just as our dear brother Paul, with the wisdom that God gave him, wrote you to do,