This is my second letter to you, beloved; I write such letters as a reminder, to awaken in you your clear sense of the truth.

Do not forget those predictions of the holy prophets which I mentioned to you, or the charge which our Lord and Saviour laid on your apostles.✻

Remember always that in the last days mocking deceivers must needs come, following the rule of their own appetites,

who will ask, What has become of the promise that he would appear? Ever since the fathers went to their rest, all is as it was from the foundation of the world.

They are fain to forget how, long ago, heaven stood there, and an earth which God’s word had made with water for its origin, water for its frame;

and those were the very means by which the world, as it then was, came to perish, overwhelmed by water.

That same word keeps heaven and earth, as they now are, stored up, ready to feed the fire on the day when the godless will be judged, and perish.

But one thing, beloved, you must keep in mind, that with the Lord a day counts as a thousand years, and a thousand years count as a day.✻

The Lord is not being dilatory over his promise, as some think; he is only giving you more time, because his will is that all of you should attain repentance, not that some should be lost.

But the day of the Lord is coming, and when it comes, it will be upon you like a thief. The heavens will vanish in a whirlwind, the elements will be scorched up and dissolve, earth, and all earth’s achievements, will burn away.

All so transitory; and what men you ought to be! How unworldly in your life, how reverent towards God,

as you wait, and wait eagerly, for the day of the Lord to come, for the heavens to shrivel up in fire, and the elements to melt in its heat!

And meanwhile, we have new heavens and a new earth to look forward to, the dwelling-place of holiness; that is what he has promised.

Beloved, since these expectations are yours, do everything to make sure that he shall find you innocent, undefiled, at peace.

If our Lord stays his hand, count it part of his mercy. Our beloved brother Paul, with the wisdom God has granted him, has written you a letter,✻

in which, as in all his letters, he talks of this. (Though indeed, there are passages in them difficult to understand, and these, like the rest of scripture, are twisted into a wrong sense by ignorant and restless minds, to their own undoing.)

For yourselves, beloved, be warned in time; do not be carried away by their rash errors, and lose the firm foothold you have won;

grow up in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To him be glory, now and for all eternity. Amen.