3 First, knowing this, that there will come in [the] last days scoffers 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 creation.

5 For this is hidden from them [by their] willing it, that the heavens were of old, and the earth out of the water, and through water, being held together by the word of God,

6 through which the world that then was, being flooded by water, perished.

7 But the present heavens and the earth being kept in store by the same word, are being kept for fire until the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.