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.

For they were no fictitious stories that we followed when we informed you of the power of our Lord Jesus Christ and of his coming, but we had been eye-witnesses 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.

For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but plunged them into Tartarus, and committed them to dark dungeons to await their doom,

and if he did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a preacher of righteousness, and seven others, when he brought the flood upon the godless world;

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

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.