because his divine power has bestowed on us all [things] [that are] necessary for life and godliness, through the knowledge of the one who called us by his own glory and excellence of character,

through which things he has bestowed on us his precious and very great promises, so that through these you may become sharers of the divine nature [after] escaping from the corruption [that is] in the world because of evil desire,

But there were also false prophets among the people, as there will be false teachers among you also, who will bring in {destructive heresies}, even denying the Master who bought them, [thus] bringing on themselves swift destruction.

And many will follow their licentious ways, because of whom the way of truth will be reviled.

And in greediness they will exploit you with false words, whose condemnation [from] long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep.

But these persons, like irrational animals born [only with] natural [instincts] for capture and killing, blaspheming {about things} they do not understand, in their destruction will also be destroyed,

being harmed [as the] wages of unrighteousness. Considering reveling in the daytime a pleasure, [they are] stains and blemishes, carousing in their deceitful pleasures [when they] feast together with you,

For if, [after they] have escaped from the defilements of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and they are again entangled in these [things] [and] succumb to [them], the last [state] has become worse for them than the first.

to remember the words proclaimed beforehand by the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior through your apostles,

above all knowing this, that in the last days scoffers will come with scoffing, following according to their own desires

For [when] they maintain this, it escapes [their] notice that the heavens existed long ago and the earth held together out of water and through water by the word of God,

as [he does] also in all his letters, speaking in them about these [things], in which there are some [things] hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable distort to their own destruction, as [they] also [do] the rest of the scriptures.