as all things of his divine power to us, things toward life and piety, which were granted through the knowledge of him who called us through glory and virtue.

through which things very great and precious favors that were promised have been given us, that through these you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through desire:

For we did not follow cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty.

For when he was so honored and glorified by God the Father and from the supreme glory there were borne to him such words as these: "This is my Son, my Beloved! He is my Chosen!"??18 we heard these words borne from heaven when we were with him on that sacred mountain.

and this voice we ourselves heard borne out of heaven, when we were with him in the holy mount.

And still stronger is the assurance that we have in the teaching of the Prophets; to which you will do well to pay attention (as if it were a lamp shining in a gloomy place), until the Day dawns and the Morning Star rises in your hearts.

for no prophecy has ever yet originated in man's will, but men who were led by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.

But there were false prophets, too, among the people, just as among you also there will be false teachers. These will secretly bring in destructive sects, denying even the Master who bought them, and bringing swift ruin upon themselves.

For if God did not have pity for the angels who did evil, but sent them down into hell, to be kept in chains of eternal night till they were judged;

and if He did not spare the ancient world of Noah's day, when He brought a flood on those ungodly people (though Noah, a preacher of righteousness, and seven other people, were saved from it);

and he condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to destruction, being reduced to ashes, having made an example of men who were going to be irreverent,

And, righteous Lot, when getting worn out by the behaviour of them who were impious in wantonness, he rescued -

(For their lawless deeds were torture, day after day, to the pure soul of that righteous man--all that he saw and heard whilst living in their midst.)

having forsaked a straight path, they were led astray, men who followed the way of Balaam, son of Beor, who loved the wage of unrighteousness.

For when they speak great swelling words of vanity, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, through much wantonness, those that were clean escaped from them who live in error.

For if people who have escaped from the defiling practices of the world by coming to know our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, become tangled up in them again, and are overcome by them, these people are worse off than before they were converted.

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

that ye should remember the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and the commandments of the Lord and Saviour through your apostles:

and saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for, from the day that the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.

For this they willfully forget, that there were heavens from of old, and an earth compacted out of water and amidst water, by the word of God;

as it were in all his epistles, where he takes notice of these things: in which there are some passages that are difficult to understand, which the illiterate, and unstable wrest, as they do the rest of the scriptures, to their own ruin.