³ ¶ knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts

⁴ and saying, Where is the promise of his coming? For since the day in which the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.

⁵ Of course, they willingly ignore that the heavens were created of old and the earth standing out of the water and in the water, by the word of God;