Study Desk

But I consider it right, for as long as I am in this habitation, to stir you up by a reminder,

For we did not make known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ by following ingeniously concocted myths, but by being eyewitnesses of that one's majesty.

For he received honor and glory from God the Father when a voice such as this was brought to him by the Majestic Glory, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased."

for no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men carried along by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.

For if God did not spare the angels who sinned, but held them captive in Tartarus with chains of darkness and handed them over to be kept for judgment,

and condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to destruction, reducing them to ashes, having appointed them as an example for those who are going to be ungodly,

(for that righteous man, as he lived among them day after day, was tormenting his righteous soul by the lawless deeds he was seeing and hearing),

But these persons, like irrational animals born only with natural instincts for capture and killing, blaspheming about things they do not understand, in their destruction will also be destroyed,

having eyes full of desire for an adulteress and unceasing from sin, enticing unstable persons, and having hearts trained for greediness. Accursed children!

but received a rebuke for his own lawlessness: a speechless donkey, speaking with a human voice, restrained the prophet's madness.

These people are waterless springs and mists driven by a hurricane, for whom the gloom of darkness has been reserved.

For by speaking high-sounding but empty words, they entice with desires of the flesh and with licentiousness those who are scarcely escaping from those who live in error,

promising them freedom although they themselves are slaves of depravity. For to whatever someone succumbs, by this he is also enslaved.

For if, after they have escaped from the defilements of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and they are again entangled in these things and succumb to them, the last state has become worse for them than the first.

For it would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness than having known it, to turn back from the holy commandment that had been delivered to them.

and saying, "Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things have continued just as they have been 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,

But by the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly people.

while waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be destroyed by being burned up and the celestial bodies will melt as they are consumed by heat!

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