JMNT(i)
3 while continuing in knowing this first, by experience, that upon [the] last (or: final [phases]) of these (or: the) days mockers (scoffers) will proceed coming and going – in mocking (scoffing; deriding), according to their own cravings (or: in correspondence to their personal full passions), folks continually traveling from one place to another (or: = people normally ordering their lives according to their personal desires) –
4 even saying, "Where is the promise of His presence? For since the fathers were put (or: lulled) to sleep, all things (or: everything) constantly remain (s) thus (in this way or manner) throughout, from [the] beginning of creation (the framing; the reduction from a state of disorder)."
5 You see, it continues unnoticed and unrecognized – [by] those folks habitually desiring this [to be the case] (or: = they deliberately ignore the fact) – that skies (or: atmospheres; heavens) and land were continuously existing from long ago (or: = from ancient times) – from out of the midst of water, and through water – being made to stand together (being placed or put together) by (or: in; with) the Word (Logos; thought and idea; reason) of God (or: which is God),
6 through which [very waters; or: directives of His Word] the ordered System (world of culture and relationships) of that time destroyed (or: lost) itself, being washed down (inundated; deluged) by water.
7 Yet at the present time the heavens and the earth (or: the atmospheres and skies, as well as the land), by the same Word (or: in the same Logos) – having been collected and being stored up as treasure, by (or: in; for; with) fire – continuously exist, being constantly kept (watched, guarded and maintained) with a view to a day of separating for deciding (or: with the character of evaluating for judging), as well as of loss, ruin or destruction which pertains to the irreverent humans (or: of people devoid of reverential awe toward God).
8 Yet now this one thing [p72: But in this] – let it not continue unnoticed, escape your detection, or be hidden from you – beloved ones, one day beside the Lord [is] as a thousand years, and yet a thousand years [is] as one day.
9 The Lord [= Yahweh] is not continually delaying the promise, as certain folks consider delay, but rather is constantly patient (long of emotion and slow in passion; long before rushing heatedly) unto you, constantly not intending any folks to be lost (or: to destroy themselves), but to the contrary, [for] all people to make room, allow space, give way and progress into a change of mind (or: = repentance and a return to God).
10 So the day of the Lord [= Yahweh] will proceed in arriving as a thief [i.e., suddenly and without notice], in which [day] the heavens (or: atmospheres; or: skies) will proceed passing by with the noise of sudden movement, but yet rudimentary, elementary principles (or: basic component and parts of a system arranged in rows, or a grid; e.g., the elements and assumptions of a religious or intellectual system), being progressively heated as with a burning fever, will be progressively loosed (unfastened; unbound; or: nullified; destroyed). And then land (or: soil; ground; earth; or: = a territory) – along with the things produced (or: actions; deeds; workmanships; accomplishments) [note: God's and/or man's] within the midst of it – will continue being found (or: discovered; found out) [p72 adds: being progressively loosed (or: destroyed); A reads: will be burned up]!
11 With all these people thus, then, being presently loosed, one after another (or: being in the process of being progressively unbound; or: with all these things being continuously dissolved in this way), in what sort of way is it continuously necessary and binding for you folks [other MSS: us; other MSS have no personal pronoun here] to constantly subsist (or: humbly rule or supportively possess)? Within set-apart (or: holy; sacred), upturned modes of behavior and [lives of] reverence (devout ease, virtuous conduct and goodness from relationship with God)!
12 – while constantly being receptive toward and progressively hastening after the presence of God's Day (or: the presence, which is God's day; or: the presence of the day which has the quality and character of God and which is God), through which heavens (or: skies; atmospheres) – being continuously on fire – will be loosed (or: untied)! And so [the body of] elements (rudimentary principles and assumptions; component parts of the system), now being continuously intensely hot and burning, [are] presently being progressively melted down (or: liquefied).