Through these things he has bestowed on us his precious and most magnificent promises, so that by means of what was promised you may become partakers of the divine nature, after escaping the worldly corruption that is produced by evil desire.

For he that lacketh these things is blind, seeing only what is near, having forgotten the cleansing from his old sins.

and if He condemned, by burning them to ashes, the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, making them an example to godless people of what was coming to them,

and saved the upright Lot who was so distressed by the immoral conduct of unprincipled men??8 for as long as that upright man lived among them, day after day his upright soul was tormented by what he saw and heard of their lawless actions??9 then the Lord knows how to rescue God-fearing people from trial and to punish wrongdoers while they are being kept for the Day of Judgment,

for as long as that upright man was living among them, his upright soul, day and night, was always being tortured by what he saw and heard in their lawless actions --

and these, as irrational natural beasts, made to be caught and destroyed -- in what things they are ignorant of, speaking evil -- in their destruction shall be destroyed,

[Although] their talk is big, what they say is worthless, and by [offering people] fleshly desires [i.e., sexual gratification], they lead people astray, who are barely escaping from the error of the world.

promising them freedom, while they themselves are bondmen of corruption, for by what any man has been overcome, of this he has also been enslaved.

In them is verified the truth of the proverb, "A dog turns back to what he has vomited"; and of that other proverb, "A sow that has washed herself goes back to wallow in the mire."

to remember the words spoken to you in the past by the holy prophets, and what the Lord and Savior commanded you through your apostles.

by saying, "What happened to the Messiah's promise to return? Ever since our ancestors died, everything continues as it did from the beginning of creation."

The Lord does not delay [as though He were unable to act] and is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is [extraordinarily] patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.

Seeing that these things are thus all to be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy living and godliness,

Regard our Lord's forbearance as your one hope of Salvation. This is what our dear Brother Paul wrote to you, with the wisdom that God gave him.

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.