Study Desk

For which cause, I will begin to put you always in remembrance of these things: though indeed you know them and are confirmed in the present truth.

For we have not by following artificial fables made known to you the power and presence of our Lord Jesus Christ: but we were eyewitnesses of his greatness.

For he received from God the Father honour and glory, this voice coming down to him from the excellent glory: This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Hear ye him.

For prophecy came not by the will of man at any time: but the holy men of God spoke, inspired by the Holy Ghost.

For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but delivered them, drawn down by infernal ropes to the lower hell, unto torments, to be reserved unto judgment:

For in sight and hearing he was just, dwelling among them who from day to day vexed the just soul with unjust works.

Receiving the reward of their injustice, counting for a pleasure the delights of a day: stains and spots, sporting themselves to excess, rioting in their feasts with you:

For, speaking proud words of vanity, they allure by the desires of fleshly riotousness those who for a little while escape, such as converse in error:

Promising them liberty, whereas they themselves are the slaves of corruption. For by whom a man is overcome, of the same also he is the slave.

For if, flying from the pollutions of the world, through the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they be again entangled in them and overcome: their latter state is become unto them worse than the former.

For it had been better for them not to have known the way of justice than, after they have known it, to turn back from that holy commandment which was delivered to them.

For, that of the true proverb has happened to them: The dog is returned to his vomit; and: The sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire.

Saying: Where is his promise or his coming? For since the time that the fathers slept, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.

For this they are wilfully ignorant of: That the heavens were before, and the earth out of water and through water, consisting by the word of God:

The Lord delayeth not his promise, as some imagine, but dealeth patiently for your sake, not willing that any should perish, but that all should return to penance,

Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of the Lord, by which the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with the burning heat?

But we look for new heavens and a new earth according to his promises, in which justice dwelleth.

Wherefore, dearly beloved, waiting for these things, be diligent that you may be found before him unspotted and blameless in peace.

For the life was manifested: and we have seen and do bear witness and declare unto you the life eternal, which was with the Father and hath appeared to us.

And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world.