3 First of all you must understand this: In the last days mockers will come and, following their own desires, will ridicule us4 by saying, "What happened to his promise to return? Ever since our ancestors died, everything continues as it did from the beginning of creation."5 But they deliberately ignore the fact that long ago the heavens existed and the earth was formed by God's word out of water and with water,6 by which the world at that time was deluged with water and destroyed.7 Now by the same word the present heavens and earth have been reserved for fire and are being kept for the day when ungodly people will be judged and destroyed.