1 From: Shim‘on Kefa, a slave and emissary of Yeshua the Messiah

To: Those who, through the righteousness of our God and of our Deliverer Yeshua the Messiah, have been given the same kind of trust as ours:

² May grace and shalom be yours in full measure, as you come to a full knowledge of God and Yeshua our Lord.

³ God’s power has given us everything we need for life and godliness, through our knowing the One who called us to his own glory and goodness. ⁴ By these he has given us valuable and superlatively great promises, so that through them you might come to share in God’s nature and escape the corruption which evil desires have brought into the world.

⁵ For this very reason, try your hardest to furnish your faith with goodness, goodness with knowledge, ⁶ knowledge with self-control, self-control with perseverance, perseverance with godliness, ⁷ godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. ⁸ For if you have these qualities in abundance, they keep you from being barren and unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Yeshua the Messiah. ⁹ Indeed, whoever lacks them is blind, so shortsighted that he forgets that his past sins have been washed away. ¹⁰ Therefore, brothers, try even harder to make your being called and chosen a certainty. For if you keep doing this, you will never stumble. ¹¹ Thus you will be generously supplied with everything you need to enter the eternal Kingdom of our Lord and Deliverer, Yeshua the Messiah.

¹² For this reason, I will always remind you about these things, even though you know them and are firmly established in the truth you already have. ¹³ And I consider it right to keep stirring you up with reminders, as long as I am in the tent of this body. ¹⁴ I know that I will soon lay aside this tent of mine, as our Lord Yeshua the Messiah has made clear to me. ¹⁵ And I will do my best to see that after my exodus, you will be able to remember these things at all times.

¹⁶ For when we made known to you the power and the coming of our Lord Yeshua the Messiah, we did not rely on cunningly contrived myths. On the contrary, we saw his majesty with our own eyes. ¹⁷ For we were there when he received honor and glory from God the Father; and the voice came to him from the grandeur of the Sh’khinah, saying, “This is my son, whom I love; I am well pleased with him!” ¹⁸ We heard this voice come out of heaven when we were with him on the holy mountain.

¹⁹ Yes, we have the prophetic Word made very certain. You will do well to pay attention to it as to a light shining in a dark, murky place, until the Day dawns and the Morning Star rises in your hearts. ²⁰ First of all, understand this: no prophecy of Scripture is to be interpreted by an individual on his own; ²¹ for never has a prophecy come as a result of human willing — on the contrary, people moved by the Ruach HaKodesh spoke a message from God.