For if you have these qualities and they continue to increase in you, they will make you neither idle nor unproductive in attaining a full knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Therefore, brothers, be all the more in earnest to make certain to yourselves God's call and choice of you. For if you cultivate these qualities, you will never slip,

for it is in this way that to you will be generously granted a triumphant admittance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

Therefore, I will always remind you of these things, although you know them and are firmly grounded in the truth that you already have.

Yes, I will be in earnest, so that every time you have occasion, after I have gone away, you may call these things to mind.

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

Now there were false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you too, who will insidiously introduce destructive heresies and deny the Master who has bought them, thus bringing on themselves swift destruction.

Many people will follow their immoral ways, and because of them the true Way will be abused,

In their greed they will exploit you with messages manufactured by themselves. From of old their condemnation has not been idle and their destruction has not been slumbering.

These men, like irrational animals, mere creatures of instinct created to be caught and killed, abuse the things that they do not understand, and so by their corruption they will be destroyed, suffering wrong as punishment for their wrongdoing.

First of all, you must understand this, that in the last days mockers will come with their mockeries, living in accordance with their evil passions,

The day of the Lord will come like a thief; on that day the heavens will pass away with a roar, the heavenly bodies will be destroyed by being burned up, and the earth with all its works will melt away.

since you are awaiting and hastening the coming of the day of God, which will cause the heavens to blaze and dissolve and the heavenly bodies to burn up and melt away!

In accordance with His promise we are expecting new heavens and a new earth, in which uprightness will have its permanent home.