May more and more grace and peace be granted to you in a full knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord,

For if these things are really yours and are continually increasing, they will keep you from becoming ineffective and unproductive in your pursuit of knowing our Lord Jesus Christ more intimately.

Wherefore, brethren, give the more diligence to make your calling and election sure: for if ye do these things, ye shall never stumble:

For it was not mere stories of fancy that we followed when we told you of the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we had been eyewitnesses of His majesty.

We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts:

for no prophetic teaching ever came in the old days at the mere wish of man, but men, moved by the Holy Spirit, spoke direct from God.

yet even angels, who are much more powerful, do not bring a slanderous judgment against them before the Lord.

But these, as creatures without reason, born mere animals to be taken and destroyed, railing in matters whereof they are ignorant, shall in their destroying surely be destroyed,

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

For if, after escaping from the pollutions of the world through a full knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, people are once more entangled in these pollutions and are overcome, their last state has become worse than their first.

But it is happened unto them according to the true proverb, The dog is turned to his own vomit again; and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire.

But, my loved ones, keep in mind this one thing, that with the Lord one day is the same as a thousand years, and a thousand years are no more than one day.