Deceptions of False Teachers

18 For when they speak great swelling words of emptiness, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, through lewdness, the ones who 9have actually escaped from those who live in error. 19 While they promise them liberty, they themselves are slaves of 1corruption; qfor by whom a person is overcome, by him also he is brought into 2bondage. 20 For if, after they rhave escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are sagain entangled in them and overcome, the latter end is worse for them than the beginning. 21 For tit would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered to them. 22 But it has happened to them according to the true proverb: u“A dog returns to his own vomit,” and, “a sow, having washed, to her wallowing in the mire.”

God’s Promise is Not Slack

3 Beloved, I now write to you this second epistle (in both of which aI stir up your pure minds by way of reminder), 2 that you may be mindful of the words bwhich were spoken before by the holy prophets, cand of the commandment of 1us, the apostles of the Lord and Savior, 3 knowing this first: that scoffers will come in the last days, dwalking according to their own lusts, 4 and saying, “Where is the promise of His coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of ecreation.” 5 For this they willfully forget: that fby the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth gstanding out of water and in the water, 6 hby which the world that then existed perished, being flooded with water. 7 But ithe heavens and the earth which are now preserved by the same word, are reserved for jfire until the day of judgment and 2perdition of ungodly men.

8 But, beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and ka thousand years as one day. 9 lThe Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but mis longsuffering toward 3us, nnot willing that any should perish but othat all should come to repentance.

The Day of the Lord

10 But pthe day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which qthe heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat; both the earth and the works that are in it will be 4burned up. 11 Therefore, since all these things will be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be rin holy conduct and godliness, 12 slooking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will tbe dissolved, being on fire, and the elements will umelt with fervent heat? 13 Nevertheless we, according to His promise, look for vnew heavens and a wnew earth in which righteousness dwells.