But for this very reason also, using therewith all diligence, in your faith have also virtue, in virtue knowledge,

for these things existing and abounding in you make you to be neither idle nor unfruitful as regards the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ;

for he with whom these things are not present is blind, short-sighted, and has forgotten the purging of his former sins.

Wherefore the rather, brethren, use diligence to make your calling and election sure, for doing these things ye will never fall;

for thus shall the entrance into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ be richly furnished unto you.

For we have not made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, following cleverly imagined fables, but having been eyewitnesses of his majesty.

For he received from God the Father honour and glory, such a voice being uttered to him by the excellent glory: This is my beloved Son, in whom I have found my delight;

for prophecy was not ever uttered by the will of man, but holy men of God spake under the power of the Holy Spirit.

And through covetousness, with well-turned words, will they make merchandise of you: for whom judgment of old is not idle, and their destruction slumbers not.

For if God spared not the angels who had sinned, but having cast them down to the deepest pit of gloom has delivered them to chains of darkness to be kept for judgment;

(for the righteous man through seeing and hearing, dwelling among them, tormented his righteous soul day after day with their lawless works,)

and specially those who walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanness, and despise lordship. Bold are they, self-willed; they do not fear speaking injuriously of dignities:

These are springs without water, and mists driven by storm, to whom the gloom of darkness is reserved for ever.

For while speaking great highflown words of vanity, they allure with the lusts of the flesh, by dissoluteness, those who have just fled those who walk in error,

promising them liberty, while they themselves are slaves of corruption; for by whom a man is subdued, by him is he also brought into slavery.

For if after having escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, again entangled, they are subdued by these, their last state is worse than the first.

For it were better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them.

and saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for from the time the fathers fell asleep all things remain thus from the beginning of the creation.

For this is hidden from them through their own wilfulness, that heavens were of old, and an earth, having its subsistence out of water and in water, by the word of God,

But the present heavens and the earth by his word are laid up in store, kept for fire unto a day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.

waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, by reason of which the heavens, being on fire, shall be dissolved, and the elements, burning with heat, shall melt?

But, according to his promise, we wait for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwells righteousness.

Wherefore, beloved, as ye wait for these things, be diligent to be found of him in peace, without spot and blameless;