2 Peter

1

¹ Simon Peter, a slave and apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who have been allotted faith equally precious as ours in the righteousness of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ:
² Grace to you and peace be multiplied in the full knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord;
³ Seeing that His divine power has granted to us all things which relate to life and godliness, through the full knowledge of Him who has called us by His own glory and virtue,
⁴ Through which He has granted to us precious and exceedingly great promises that through these you might become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption which is in the world by lust.
⁵ And for this very reason also, adding all diligence, supply bountifully in your faith virtue; and in virtue, knowledge;
⁶ And in knowledge, self-control; and in self-control, endurance; and in endurance, godliness;
⁷ And in godliness, brotherly love; and in brotherly love, love.
⁸ For these things, existing in you and abounding, constitute you neither idle nor unfruitful unto the full knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
⁹ For he in whom these things are not present is blind, being shortsighted, having forgotten the cleansing of his past sins.
¹⁰ Therefore, brothers, be the more diligent to make your calling and selection firm, for doing these things you shall by no means ever stumble.
¹¹ For in this way the entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be richly and bountifully supplied to you.
¹² Therefore I will be ready always to remind you concerning these things, even though you know them and have been established in the present truth.
¹³ And I consider it right, as long as I am in this tabernacle, to stir you up by a reminder,
¹⁴ Knowing that the putting off of my tabernacle is imminent, even as also our Lord Jesus Christ has made clear to me.
¹⁵ Moreover I will also be diligent that you may be able, after my exodus, to bring these things to mind at all times.
¹⁶ For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we became eyewitnesses of that One’s majesty.
¹⁷ For He received from God the Father honor and glory, a voice such as this being borne to Him by the magnificent glory: This is My Son, My Beloved, in whom I delight.
¹⁸ And this voice we heard being borne out of heaven while we were with Him in the holy mountain.
¹⁹ And we have the prophetic word made more firm, to which you do well to give heed as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts;
²⁰ Knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of one’s own interpretation;
²¹ For no prophecy was ever borne by the will of man, but men spoke from God while being borne by the Holy Spirit.

2

¹ But there arose also false prophets among the people, as also among you there will be false teachers, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction.
² And many will follow their licentiousness, because of whom the way of the truth will be reviled.
³ And in covetousness, with fabricated words, they will make merchandise of you, for whom the judgment of old is not idle, and their destruction does not slumber.
⁴ For if God did not spare the angels who sinned but delivered them to gloomy pits, having cast them down to Tartarus, they being kept for judgment;
⁵ And did not spare the ancient world but guarded Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven others, when He brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly;
⁶ And having reduced to ashes the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, condemned them to ruin, having set them as an example to those who intend to live an ungodly life,
⁷ And rescued righteous Lot, who had been oppressed by the licentious manner of life of the lawless
⁸ (For that righteous man, who settled down among them, in seeing and hearing tormented his righteous soul day after day with their lawless works);
⁹ The Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of trial and how to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment,
¹⁰ And especially those who go after the flesh in the lust for defilement and despise lordship. Daring, self-willed, they do not tremble while reviling dignities;
¹¹ Whereas angels, though they are greater in strength and power, do not bring a reviling judgment against them before the Lord.
¹² But these, like animals without reason, born natural for capture and destruction, reviling in things of which they are ignorant, will also in their corrupting of others be destroyed;
¹³ Suffering unrighteousness as the wages of unrighteousness; considering luxury in the day to be pleasure; spots and blemishes, reveling in their deceits while feasting together with you;
¹⁴ Having eyes full of adultery and not ceasing from sin; enticing unstable souls, having a heart exercised for covetousness, children of curse.
¹⁵ Forsaking the straight way, they have gone astray, following the way of Balaam, the son of Beor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness
¹⁶ But had reproof for his own transgression: a dumb beast of burden, uttering with a man’s voice, restrained the madness of the prophet.
¹⁷ These are springs without water and mists driven by a storm, for whom the gloom of darkness is kept.
¹⁸ For uttering great swelling words of vanity, they entice by lusts of the flesh, with licentiousness, those who are barely escaping from them who live in error;
¹⁹ Promising freedom to them, while they themselves are slaves of corruption; for by whom anyone has been defeated, by this one he has been enslaved.
²⁰ For if, having escaped the defilements of the world by the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ but having again been entangled in these, they are defeated, the last state has become worse for them than the first.
²¹ For it would be better for them not to have known the way of righteousness than, knowing it, to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them.
²² It has happened to them according to the true proverb: The dog has turned to its own vomit, and the washed sow to wallowing in the mud.

3

¹ This second letter, beloved, I now write to you; in them both I stir up your sincere mind with a reminder,
² So that you would remember the words spoken before by the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior preached by your apostles;
³ Knowing this first, that in the last of days mockers will come with mocking, going on according to their own lusts
⁴ And saying, Where is the promise of His coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue in this way from the beginning of creation.
⁵ For this escapes them by their own choosing, that by the word of God the heavens were of old and the earth was compacted out of water and through water,
⁶ Through which the world then, being flooded with water, perished.
⁷ But the heavens and the earth now, by the same word, have been stored up for fire, being kept unto the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.
⁸ But do not let this one thing escape you, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years and a thousand years like one day.
⁹ The Lord does not delay regarding the promise, as some count delay, but is long-suffering toward you, not intending that any perish but that all advance to repentance.
¹⁰ But the day of the Lord will come as a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the elements, burning with intense heat, will be dissolved, and the earth and the works in it will be burned up.
¹¹ Since all these things are to be thus dissolved, what kind of persons ought you to be in holy manner of life and godliness,
¹² Expecting and hastening the coming of the day of God, on account of which the heavens, being on fire, will be dissolved, and the elements, burning with intense heat, are to be melted away?
¹³ But according to His promise we are expecting new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells.
¹⁴ Therefore, beloved, since you expect these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace without spot and without blemish;
¹⁵ And count the long-suffering of our Lord to be salvation, even as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given to him, wrote to you,
¹⁶ As also in all his letters, speaking in them concerning these things, in which some things are hard to understand, which the unlearned and unstable twist, as also the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction.
¹⁷ You therefore, beloved, since you know these things beforehand, be on your guard lest being carried away by the error of the lawless, you fall from your own steadfastness.
¹⁸ But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory both now and unto the day of eternity. Amen.