Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

3 My dear brothers, this is my second letter to you. In both of my letters I have tried to bring some things to your good minds.

² I want you to remember what God's prophets said would happen. And I want you to remember what we apostles told you that our Lord and Saviour said.

³ Here is the first thing. In the last days, men will come who will make fun of holy things. They will do what they themselves want to do.

⁴ They will say, `He promised to come. Where is he? Our fathers have died. And since then everything is just the same as it has been since the world was made.'

⁵ They do not want to remember that long ago God spoke and made the sky. He made the land come up from the water.

⁶ But later on these same waters covered the world in a flood and the people died.

⁷ The sky and the earth that are here now are being kept because God spoke. They are kept to be burned up. This will happen on the day when God judges people and they will die.