Study Desk

I will do my best, then, to provide a way for you to remember these matters at all times after my death.

For no prophetic message ever came just from the human will, but people were under the control of the Holy Spirit as they spoke the message that came from God.

In their greed these false teachers will make a profit out of telling you made-up stories. For a long time now their Judge has been ready, and their Destroyer has been wide awake!

God did not spare the angels who sinned, but threw them into hell, where they are kept chained in darkness, waiting for the Day of Judgment.

And so the Lord knows how to rescue godly people from their trials and how to keep the wicked under punishment for the Day of Judgment,

especially those who follow their filthy bodily lusts and despise God's authority. These false teachers are bold and arrogant, and show no respect for the glorious beings above; instead, they insult them.

and they will be paid with suffering for the suffering they have caused. Pleasure for them is to do anything in broad daylight that will satisfy their bodily appetites; they are a shame and a disgrace as they join you in your meals, all the while enjoying their deceitful ways!

They want to look for nothing but the chance to commit adultery; their appetite for sin is never satisfied. They lead weak people into a trap. Their hearts are trained to be greedy. They are under God's curse!

They have left the straight path and have lost their way; they have followed the path taken by Balaam son of Beor, who loved the money he would get for doing wrong

and was rebuked for his sin. His donkey spoke with a human voice and stopped the prophet's insane action.

These people are like dried-up springs, like clouds blown along by a storm; God has reserved a place for them in the deepest darkness.

They promise them freedom while they themselves are slaves of destructive habits—for we are slaves of anything that has conquered us.

It would have been much better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than to know it and then turn away from the sacred command that was given them.

But the heavens and the earth that now exist are being preserved by the same command of God, in order to be destroyed by fire. They are being kept for the day when godless people will be judged and destroyed.

as you wait for the Day of God and do your best to make it come soon—the Day when the heavens will burn up and be destroyed, and the heavenly bodies will be melted by the heat.

But we wait for what God has promised: new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness will be at home.

And so, my friends, as you wait for that Day, do your best to be pure and faultless in God's sight and to be at peace with him.

But if we obey his word, we are the ones whose love for God has really been made perfect. This is how we can be sure that we are in union with God:

However, the command I now write you is new, because its truth is seen in Christ and also in you. For the darkness is passing away, and the real light is already shining.

I write to you, my children, because your sins are forgiven for the sake of Christ.