3 knowing this first: that mockers will come in the last days, walking according to their own lusts,4 and saying, "Where is the promise of His coming? For since the fathers died, all things continue as from the beginning of creation."5 For this they willingly forget: that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and [the] earth, consisting out of water and through water,6 by which the world at that time perished, being flooded by water;7 but the present heavens and earth, having been stored up by His word, are being reserved for fire until the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.