Inasmuch as his power divine has bestowed on us every requisite for life and piety by the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence ??4 bestowing on us thereby promises precious and supreme, that by means of them you may escape the corruption produced within the world by lust, and participate in the divine nature ??5 for this very reason, do you contrive to make it your whole concern to furnish your faith with resolution, resolution with intelligence,

For as these qualities exist and increase with you, they render you active and fruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ;

So be the more eager, brothers, to ratify your calling and election, for as you practise these qualities you will never make a slip;

Hence I mean to keep on reminding you of this, although you are aware of it and are fixed in the Truth as it is;

so long as I am in this tent, I deem it proper to stir you up by way of reminder,

since I know my tent must be folded up very soon ??as indeed our Lord Jesus Christ has shown me.

Still, false prophets did appear among the People, as among you also there will be false teachers, men who will insinuate destructive heresies, even disowning the Lord who ransomed them; they bring rapid destruction on themselves,

done out of the profits of their evil-doing. Pleasure for them is revelling in open daylight ??spots and blots, with their dissipated revelling, as they carouse in your midst! ??14 their eyes are full of harlotry, insatiable for sin; their own hearts trained to lust, they beguile unsteady souls. Accursed generation!

they have gone wrong by leaving the straight road, by following the road of Balaam son of Bosor, who liked the profits of evil-doing ??16 but he got reproved for his malpractice: a dumb ass spoke with human voice and checked the prophet's infatuation.

asking, "Where is His promised advent? Since the day our fathers fell asleep, things remain exactly as they were from the beginning of creation."

Now as all things are thus to be dissolved, what holy and pious men ought you to be in your behaviour,

It is new heavens and a new earth that we expect, as He has promised, and in them dwells righteousness.

Then, beloved, as you are expecting this, be eager to be found by him unspotted and unblemished in serene assurance.

And consider that the longsuffering of our Lord means salvation; as indeed our beloved brother Paul has written to you out of the wisdom vouchsafed to him,

speaking of this as he has done in all his letters ??letters containing some knotty points, which ignorant and unsteady souls twist (as they do the rest of the scriptures) to their own destruction.