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I : 16.

For we did not follow cunningly-devised fables, when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eye-witnesses of his majesty. For he received from God the Father honor and glory, when there came such a voice to him from the majestic glory:

This is my beloved son.

In him I am well pleased.

And this voice we ourselves heard come out of heaven, when we were with him in the holy

mount.

And we have the word of prophecy yet more sure; to which you do well to take heed as to a lamp shining in a dark place, till the day dawns, and the day star rises in your hearts: knowing this first, that no prophecy of scripture comes from private interpretation. For no prophecy ever came by the will of man: but men spoke from God, being moved by the Holy Spirit.

But false prophets came also among the people, as there will be false teachers also among you, and they will secretly bring in destructive heresies, denying even the Master who bought them, bringing on themselves swift destruction. And many will follow their lascivious doings; and by reason of them the way of truth

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will be reviled, and with covetousness they will with feigned words make merchandise of you. And their sentence now from of old does not linger, nor does their destruction slumber.

For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into Tartarus, and committed them to pits of darkness to be reserved for judgment; and did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah with seven others, a preacher of righteousness, when he brought a flood on the world of the godless; and turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes condemned them with an overthrow, having made them an example to those who should live godless lives, and delivered good Lot, sore distressed by the lascivious life of the wicked (for that good man living among them, in seeing and hearing, tortured his good soul from day to day with their lawless deeds): the Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptation, and to keep the wicked under punishment to the day of judgment; but chiefly those who follow the flesh in the desire of defilement, and despise dominion.

Daring, self-willed, they do not tremble to revile dignities, where angels, greater in might and power, do not bring a reviling judgment against them before the Lord. But these, as

ΙΟ

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creatures without reason, born mere animals to be taken and destroyed, reviling in things of which they are ignorant, will surely be destroyed, suffering wrong as the wages of wrong-doing : counting luxury for a moment a pleasure, spots and blemishes, luxuriating in their love feasts, while they feast with you; having eyes full of adultery which cannot cease from sin; enticing unstedfast souls; having a heart trained in covetousness; children of cursing; forsaking the right way, they went astray, having followed the way of Balaam the son of Beor, who loved the wages of wrong-doing; but he was rebuked for his own wrong-doing: a dumb ass spoke with man's voice and stayed the madness of the prophet.

These are springs without water, and mists driven by a storm. And for them the blackness of darkness has been reserved. For, uttering great swelling words of vanity, they entice in the desires of the flesh, by lasciviousness, those who are just escaping from those who live in error; promising them liberty, while they themselves are slaves of corruption. For by what any one is overcome, by that he is enslaved. For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world, through the full knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again

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entangled in it and overcome, the last state has become worse with them than the first. For it would have been better for them not to have fully known the way of right-doing, than, after. fully knowing it, to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them.

It has happened to them according to the true proverb,

The dog turning to its own vomit again,

The sow which had washed to wallowing in the mire.

This is now, beloved, the second epistle which I write to you. And in both of them I stir up your sincere mind by reminding you that you should remember the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Saviour through your apostles knowing this first, that in the last days mockers will come with mockery, following their own desires, and saying:

"Where is the promise of his coming? For from the day the fathers fell asleep everything continues as it was from the beginning of the creation."

For this they wilfully ignore, that there were heavens from of old, and an earth formed out of water and by means of water, by the word of God. And by this means the world which then

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was, being overflowed with water, perished. But the heavens which now are, and the earth, by the same word have been stored up for fire, being reserved against the day of judgment and destruction of godless men.

But do not forget this one thing, beloved, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.

The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some count slackness; but is longsuffering to you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

But the day of the Lord will come as a thief. And then the heavens will pass away with a great noise, the elements will be dissolved with glowing heat, the earth and the works in it will be burnt up.

Seeing that these things are in this way all to be dissolved, what kind of persons ought you to be in holy living and godliness, looking for and earnestly desiring the coming of the day of God, by reason of which the heavens being on fire will be dissolved and the elements will melt with glowing heat? But, according to his promise,

we

look for new heavens and a new earth in which right thought and doing dwells.

So, beloved, since you are looking for this, go to work earnestly to be found in place, with

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