Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

The day of the Lord

3 My dear family, this is now the second time I am writing you a letter. Your motives are pure, and what I’m trying to do in reminding you is to stir them into action, ² so that you’ll remember the words spoken earlier by the holy prophets, and by the command of the Lord and savior which you received from your apostles. ³ But you must first know this. Deceivers will come in the last days, with deceitful ways, behaving according to their own desires. ⁴ This is what they will say: “Where is the promise of his royal arrival? Ever since the previous generation died, everything has continued just as it has from the beginning of creation.” ⁵ They willingly overlook this one thing, you see: the ancient heavens and earth were formed out of water and through water, by God’s word— ⁶ and it was destroyed by flooding the world of that time with water. ⁷ The heavens and earth that we now have are being preserved for fire by the same word, being kept for the day of judgment and the destruction of the wicked.