2 Peter 2:21
For it had been better for them not to have known the way of justice, than after they have known it, to turn back from that holy commandment which was delivered to them.
Open 2 Peter 2:21 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Melius enim erat illis non cognoscere viam justitiæ, quam post agnitionem, retrorsum converti ab eo, quod illis traditum est, sancto mandato.
- Greek New Testament (SBLGNT)
- κρεῖττον γὰρ ἦν αὐτοῖς μὴ ἐπεγνωκέναι τὴν ὁδὸν τῆς δικαιοσύνης ἢ ἐπιγνοῦσιν ὑποστρέψαι ἐκ τῆς παραδοθείσης αὐτοῖς ἁγίας ἐντολῆς·
The Fathers on this verse
St Gregory the Great The Book of Pastoral Rule, How those are to be admonished who do not even begin good things, and those who do not finish them when begun
But, on the other hand, those who in no wise complete the good things they have begun are to be admonished to consider with cautious circumspection how that, when they accomplish not their purposes, they tear up with them even the things that had been begun. For, if that which is seen to be a thing to be done advances not through assiduous application, even that which had been well done falls back. For the human soul in this world is, as it were, in the condition of a ship ascending against the stream of a river: it is never suffered to stay in one place, since it will float back to the nethermost parts unless it strive for the uppermost. If then the strong hand of the worker carry not on to perfection the good things begun, the very slackness in working fights against what has been wrought. …