Since all these things are to melt away in this manner, what sort of people must we be, conducting our lives in holiness and godliness,

suffering harm as the wages for their harmful ways. By considering it a pleasure to carouse in broad daylight, they are stains and blemishes, indulging in their deceitful pleasures when they feast together with you.

Above all, understand this: In the last days blatant scoffers will come, being propelled by their own evil urges

speaking of these things in all his letters. Some things in these letters are hard to understand, things the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they also do to the rest of the scriptures.

But, according to his promise, we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness truly resides.

May grace and peace be lavished on you as you grow in the rich knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord!

Indeed, as long as I am in this tabernacle, I consider it right to stir you up by way of a reminder,

For if God did not spare the angels who sinned, but threw them into hell and locked them up in chains in utter darkness, to be kept until the judgment,

But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the honor both now and on that eternal day.

Therefore, I intend to remind you constantly of these things even though you know them and are well established in the truth that you now have.

They are illustrations of this true proverb: “A dog returns to its own vomit,” and “A sow, after washing herself, wallows in the mire.”

Dear friends, this is already the second letter I have written you, in which I am trying to stir up your pure mind by way of reminder:

And in their greed they will exploit you with deceptive words. Their condemnation pronounced long ago is not sitting idly by; their destruction is not asleep.

Moreover, we possess the prophetic word as an altogether reliable thing. You do well if you pay attention to this as you would to a light shining in a murky place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.

and if he rescued Lot, a righteous man in anguish over the debauched lifestyle of lawless men,

For if these things are really yours and are continually increasing, they will keep you from becoming ineffective and unproductive in your pursuit of knowing our Lord Jesus Christ more intimately.

(for while he lived among them day after day, that righteous man was tormented in his righteous soul by the lawless deeds he saw and heard)

For by speaking high-sounding but empty words they are able to entice, with fleshly desires and with debauchery, people who have just escaped from those who reside in error.

But these men, like irrational animals – creatures of instinct, born to be caught and destroyed – do not understand whom they are insulting, and consequently in their destruction they will be destroyed,

For he received honor and glory from God the Father, when that voice was conveyed to him by the Majestic Glory: “This is my dear Son, in whom I am delighted.”