1 Simon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, to those that have obtained the same precious faith with us in the righteousness of our God, and the Saviour Jesus Christ.
2 Grace to you and peace be multiplied in the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord.
3 Seeing that His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the precise and correct knowledge of Him that called us by His own glory and virtue.
4 Whereby He has granted to us His precious and exceedingly great promises, that through these you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in that world by lust.
5 Yes and for this very cause you on your part should show all diligence; to your faith add virtue, and to virtue, knowledge.
6 And to your knowledge self-control, and to your self-control patience, and to your patience, reverence toward God.
7 And to your reverence toward God, brotherly kindness, and to your brotherly kindness, love.
8 For if these things are yours and abound, they make you to be neither idle nor unfruitful in the precise and correct knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
9 For he that lacks these things is blind, seeing only what is near, having forgotten the cleansing from his old sins.
10 Wherefore brothers, give the more diligence to make your calling and election sure. For if you do these things, you shall never stumble.
11 For thus shall be richly supplied to you the entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
12 Wherefore I shall be ready always to put you in remembrance of these things, though you know them and are established in the truth which is with you.
13 And I think it right, as long as I am in this tabernacle, to stir you up by putting you in remembrance.
14 Knowing that the putting off of my tabernacle comes swiftly, even as our Lord Jesus Christ indicated to me.
15 Yes, I will give diligence that at every time you may be able after my death to call these things to remembrance.
16 For we did not follow cunningly devised fables, when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty.
17 For he received from God the Father honour and glory, delivered to him by such a voice from the Majestic Glory: This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.
18 And this voice we heard, delivered out of heaven, when we were with him on the holy mount.
19 And we have the word of prophecy made yet more sure; to which you do well that you take heed, as a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the day-star arises in your hearts.
20 Knowing this first, that no prophecy of scripture is of private interpretation.
21 For no prophecy ever came by the will of man, but men spoke from God, being moved by the Holy Spirit.
1 But there arose false prophets also among the people, as among you also there shall be false teachers, who shall secretly bring in destructive heresies, denying even the master that bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction.
2 And many shall follow their destructive ways, by reason of whom the way of the truth shall be blasphemed.
3 And in covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you. Their sentence now from of old does not linger, and their destruction does not slumber.
4 For if God did not spare the angels who sinned, but cast them down to Tartarus and committed them to pits of darkness, to be reserved until judgment;
5 and did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah with seven others, a preacher of righteousness, when He brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly;
6 and turned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemning them to destruction, having made them an example to those that should live ungodly lives;
7 and delivered righteous Lot, distressed by the filthy conduct of the wicked
8 (for that righteous man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, tormented his righteous soul from day to day with their lawless deeds):
9 therefore the Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptation, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment to the day of judgment.
10 Chief among these are those that walk after the flesh in the lust of defilement and despise dominion. Daring, self-willed, they are not afraid to speak evil of dignitaries.
11 Whereas angels, though greater in might and power, do not dare bring before the Lord an injurious accusation against them.
12 But these, as creatures without reason, born mere animals to be taken and destroyed, speak reproachfully in matters of which they are ignorant; they shall in their destroying surely be destroyed,
13 suffering wrong as the wages of wrong-doing. They count it pleasure to revel in the daytime, spots and blemishes, revelling in their deceivings while they feast with you.
14 Having eyes full of adultery, they cannot cease from sin, enticing unstable souls; having a heart exercised in covetousness, children of cursing.
15 Forsaking the right way, they went astray, having followed the way of Balaam the son of Beor, who loved the wages of wrongdoing.
16 But he was rebuked for his own transgression: a dumb ass spoke with a man's voice and hindered the madness of the prophet.
17 These are springs without water and mists driven by a storm; for whom the blackness of darkness has been reserved.
18 For when they speak great swelling words of emptiness, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, through lewdness, the ones who have actually escaped from those who live in error;
19 promising them liberty, while they are in fact slaves to corruption. For of whom a person is overcome, of the same is he also brought into bondage.
20 For if, after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the latter end is worse for them than the beginning.
21 For it were better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than after knowing it, to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them.
22 It has happened to them according to the true proverb: A dog returns to his own vomit and a sow, having washed, to her wallowing in the mire.
1 This is now, beloved, the second epistle that I write to you; and in both of them I stir up your sincere mind by putting you in remembrance:
2 that you should remember the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets and the commandments of the Lord and Saviour through your apostles.
3 Knowing this first, that in the last days mockers shall come with mockery, walking after their own lusts,
4 and saying: Where is the promise of his coming? For from the day that the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.
5 For this they wilfully forget, that there were heavens from of old and an earth compacted out of water and amidst water, by the word of God;
6 by which means the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished.
7 But the heavens that now are and the earth, by the same word have been stored up for fire, being reserved against the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.
8 But beloved, do not forget this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day.
9 The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward you, not wishing that any should perish but that all should came to repentance.
10 But the day of the Lord will come as a thief. Then the heavens shall pass away with a great noise and the elements shall be dissolved with fervent heat, and the earth and the works that are therein shall be burned up.
11 Seeing that these things will be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be- in all holy living and reverence toward God.
12 Looking for and earnestly desiring the coming of the day of God, by reason of which the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved and the elements shall melt with fervent heat.
13 But, according to His promise, we look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwells righteousness.
14 Wherefore, beloved, seeing you look for these things, give diligence that you may be found in peace, without spot and blameless in his sight.
15 And consider, that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation. Even as our beloved brother Paul also, according to the wisdom given to him, wrote to you;
16 as also in all his letters, speaking in them of these things. In his letters there are some things hard to be understood, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do also the other scriptures.
17 Therefore beloved, you, knowing these things beforehand, beware; lest, being carried away with the error of the wicked, you lose your own stability.
18 But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and for ever. Amen.