If these things exist in you, and continually increase, they prevent your being either idle or unfruitful in advancing towards a full knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

For the man in whom they are lacking is blind and cannot see distant objects, in that he has forgotten that he has been cleansed from his old sins.

for never did any prophecy come by human will, but men sent by God spoke as they were impelled by the Holy Spirit.

And in their immoral ways they will have many eager disciples, through whom religion will be brought into disrepute.

Thirsting for riches, they will trade on you with their canting talk. From of old their judgement has been working itself out, and their destruction has not been slumbering.

For God did not spare angels when they had sinned, but hurling them down to Tartarus consigned them to caves of darkness, keeping them in readiness for judgement.

and especially those who are abandoned to sensuality--craving, as they do, for polluted things, and scorning control. Fool-hardy and self-willed, they do not tremble when speaking evil of glorious beings;

while angels, though greater than they in might and power, do not bring any insulting accusation against such in the presence of the Lord.

being doomed to receive a requital for their guilt. They reckon it pleasure to feast daintily in broad daylight. They are spots and blemishes, while feeding luxuriously at their love-feasts, and banqueting with you.

Their very eyes are full of adultery--being eyes which never cease from sin. These men set traps to catch unstedfast souls, their own hearts being well trained in greed. They are fore-doomed to God's curse!

Forsaking the straight road, they have gone astray, having eagerly followed in the steps of Balaam, the son of Beor, who was bent on securing the wages of unrighteousness.

For, while they pour out their frivolous and arrogant talk, they use earthly cravings--every kind of immorality--as a bait to entrap men who are just escaping from the influence of those who live in error.

And they promise them freedom, although they are themselves the slaves of what is corrupt. For a man is the slave of any one by whom he has been worsted in fight.

For it would have been better for them not to have fully known the way of righteousness, than, after knowing it, to turn back from the holy commandments in which they were instructed.

and, asking, "What has become of His promised Return? For from the time our forefathers fell asleep all things continue as they have been ever since the creation of the world."

For they are wilfully blind to the fact that there were heavens which existed of old, and an earth, the latter arising out of water and extending continuously through water, by the command of God;

That is what he says in all his letters, when speaking in them of these things. In those letters there are some statements hard to understand, which ill-taught and unprincipled people pervert, just as they do the rest of the Scriptures, to their own ruin.