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 fell asleep, all things continue just as it was from the beginning of creation." 5 For they deliberately overlook this fact: that by the word of God the heavens existed long ago, and the earth, standing out of water and in the 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.