1. Behold this second epistle I write to you, my dearly beloved, in which I stir up by way of admonition your sincere mind:
2. That you may be mindful of those words which I told you before from the holy prophets, and of your apostles, of the precepts of the Lord and Saviour.
3. Knowing this first, that in the last days there shall come deceitful scoffers, walking after their own lusts,
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished.
7. But the heavens and the earth which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of the ungodly men.
8. But of this one thing be not ignorant, my beloved, that one day with the Lord is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.
9. 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.