And the Lord passed by before his face, and proclaimed, The Lord God, gracious and merciful, longsuffering and very compassionate, and true,

and keeping justice and mercy for thousands, taking away iniquity and unrighteousness and sins; and He will not clear the guilty; bringing the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and to the children's children, to the third and fourth generation.

in hope of eternal life which God, who cannot lie, promised before time [itself],

in order that through two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we might have strong encouragement, who have fled to take hold of the hope being set before [us];