For if you have these qualities in their fulness, they will make you neither idle nor unproductive when it comes to the understanding of our Lord Jesus Christ.

So, brothers, be diligent to make sure of your calling and election [i.e., of your status as being selected by God], for when you do, you will never stumble [and fall away from God].

Yes, and I will see to it that even when I am gone, you will keep this constantly in mind.

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

For he received from God the Father honor and glory, when the voice came to him from the Majestic Glory, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased."

We heard this voice come out of heaven when we were with him on the holy mountain.

And we have the message of the prophets [confirmed to us] as more certain [than ever]. So, you will do well to pay careful attention to it, as [you would] to a lamp in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts [Note: This probably refers to the beginning of the Gospel age, when people would become enlightened to its message].

for prophecy never came by human impulse, it was when carried away by the holy Spirit that the holy men of God spoke.

For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them down to the lower parts of hell, and committed them to chains of darkness, to be reserved for judgment;

and did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah with seven others, a proclaimer of righteousness, when he brought a flood on the world of the ungodly;

if he reduced the cities of Sodom and Gomorra to ashes when he sentenced them to devastation, and thus gave the impious an example of what was in store for them,

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

(for that good man by seeing and hearing their crimes, when he dwelt among them, tormented his righteous soul from day to day with their

especially those who satisfy their lower nature by indulging in its evil passions which defile them, and who despise authority. Daring, headstrong men! They do not tremble when they abuse persons of majesty,

when the angels, which are greater both in power and might, receive not of the Lord railing judgment against them.

receiving the recompence of iniquity, counting daily luxury their pleasure; spots and blemishes, when they feast together with you; riotously indulging in their own delusions:

Their eyes are filled with sexual lust, and they are never satisfied when it comes to sinning. They entice unstable people and have hearts trained to be greedy [i.e., they continually desire the possessions of others]. [In this condition] they are under God's curse.

but he was rebuked for his own transgression: a mute donkey spoke with a man’s voice and restrained the prophet’s madness.

For when they have spoken the swelling words of vanity, they beguile with wantonness through the lusts of the flesh them that were clean escaped: but now are wrapped in errors.

promising them freedom when they are themselves slaves of destruction; for a man is the slave of whatever overcomes him.

for it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than when they knew it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered to them.

They verify the truth of the proverb: "The dog turns back to what he has vomited, the sow when washed will wallow in the mire."

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

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,

Through these waters the world of that time perished when it was flooded.

But by the same command the present heavens and earth are stored up for fire, and are kept for the day when godless men are to be judged and destroyed.

The day of the Lord will come like a thief, when the heavens will vanish with crackling roar, the stars will be set ablaze and melt, the earth and all its works will disappear.

Looking for and truly desiring the coming of the day of God, when the heavens will come to an end through fire, and the substance of the earth will be changed by the great heat?

For this reason, my loved ones, as you are looking for these things, take great care that when he comes you may be in peace before him, free from sin and every evil thing.

It is the same in all his letters when he speaks of these things. There are indeed some things in his letters hard to understand, which the ignorant and the shifty wrest, as also they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction.