1. This is now, beloved, the second letter that I have written to you; and in both of them I stir up your sincere mind by reminding you;
2. that you should remember the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and the commandment of us, the emissaries of the Lord and Saviour:
3. knowing this first, that in the last days mockers will come, walking after their own lusts,
4. and saying, “Where is the promise of his coming? For, from the day that the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.”
5. For this they wilfully forget that there were heavens from of old, and an earth formed out of water and amid water by the word of God;
6. by which means the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished.
7. But the heavens that now exist, and the earth, by the same word have been stored up for fire, being reserved against the day of judgement and destruction of ungodly men.