⁵ For this very reason, you must make every effort to supplement your faith with moral character, your moral character with knowledge, ⁶ your knowledge with self-control, your self-control with endurance, your endurance with godliness, ⁷ your godliness with brotherly kindness, and your brotherly kindness with love. ⁸ For if you possess these qualities, and if they continue to increase among you, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in attaining a full knowledge of our Lord Jesus, the Messiah.^{[a] 9} For the person who lacks these qualities is blind and shortsighted, and has forgotten the cleansing that he has received from his past sins.