³ knowing this first: that scoffers will come in the last days, ^(A)walking according to their own lusts, ⁴ and saying, “Where is the promise of His coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of ^(B)creation.” ⁵ For this they willfully forget: that ^(C)by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth ^(D)standing out of water and in the water, ^6 (E)by which the world that then existed perished, being flooded with water. ⁷ But ^(F)the heavens and the earth which are now preserved by the same word, are reserved for ^(G)fire until the day of judgment and ^[a]perdition of ungodly men.

⁸ But, beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and ^(H)a thousand years as one day. ^9 (I)The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but ^(J)is longsuffering toward ^[b]us, ^(K)not willing that any should perish but ^(L)that all should come to repentance.

³ By covetousness they will exploit you with deceptive words; for a long time their judgment has not been idle, and their destruction ^[a]does not slumber.

Doom of False Teachers

⁴ For if God did not spare the angels who sinned, but cast them down to ^[b]hell and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved for judgment; ⁵ and did not spare the ancient world, but saved Noah, one of eight people, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood on the world of the ungodly; ⁶ and turning the cities of ^(A)Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemned them to destruction, making them an example to those who afterward would live ungodly; ⁷ and ^(B)delivered righteous Lot, who was oppressed by the filthy conduct of the wicked ⁸ (for that righteous man, dwelling among them, ^(C)tormented his righteous soul from day to day by seeing and hearing their lawless deeds)— ⁹ then ^(D)the Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptations and to reserve the unjust under punishment for the day of judgment,

Jeremiah’s Question

Death Comes to All

9 For I ^[a]considered all this in my heart, so that I could declare it all: ^(A)that the righteous and the wise and their works are in the hand of God. People know neither love nor hatred by anything they see before them. ^2 (B)All things come alike to all:

³ This is an evil in all that is done under the sun: that one thing happens to all. Truly the hearts of the sons of men are full of evil; madness is in their hearts while they live, and after that they go to the dead.

Injustice Seems to Prevail

¹⁶ Moreover ^(A)I saw under the sun:

¹⁷ I said in my heart,

²⁰ Therefore I turned my heart and despaired of all the labor in which I had toiled under the sun.