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.

2 But among the people there were also false prophets, just as there will be false teachers among you. Under false pretenses they will introduce destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, and thus bring on themselves swift destruction. ² Many will follow their debaucheries; and because of them, the true Way will be maligned. ³ In their greed they will exploit you with fabricated stories.

Their punishment, decreed long ago, is not idle; their destruction is not asleep! ⁴ For God did not spare the angels who sinned; on the contrary, he put them in gloomy dungeons lower than Sh’ol to be held for judgment. ⁵ And he did not spare the ancient world; on the contrary, he preserved Noach, a herald of righteousness, with seven others, and brought the Flood upon a world of ungodly people. ⁶ And he condemned the cities of S’dom and ‘Amora, reducing them to ashes and ruin, as a warning to those in the future who would live ungodly lives; ⁷ but he rescued Lot, a righteous man who was distressed by the debauchery of those unprincipled people; ⁸ for the wicked deeds which that righteous man saw and heard, as he lived among them, tormented his righteous heart day after day. ⁹ So the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials and how to hold the wicked until the Day of Judgment while continuing to punish them, ¹⁰ especially those who follow their old natures in lust for filth and who despise authority.

Presumptuous and self-willed, these false teachers do not tremble at insulting angelic beings; ¹¹ whereas angels, though stronger and more powerful, do not bring before the Lord an insulting charge against them. ¹² But these people, acting without thinking, like animals without reason, born to be captured and destroyed, insult things about which they have no knowledge. When they are destroyed, their destruction will be total — ¹³ they will be paid back harm as wages for the harm they are doing.

Their idea of pleasure is carousing in broad daylight; they are spots and defects reveling in their deceptions as they share meals with you — ¹⁴ for they have eyes always on the lookout for a woman who will commit adultery, eyes that never stop sinning; and they have a heart that has exercised itself in greed; so that they seduce unstable people. What a cursed brood!

¹⁵ These people have left the straight way and wandered off to follow the way of Bil‘am Ben-B‘or, who loved the wages of doing harm ¹⁶ but was rebuked for his sin — a dumb beast of burden spoke out with a human voice and restrained the prophet’s insanity! ¹⁷ Waterless springs they are, mists driven by a gust of wind; for them has been reserved the blackest darkness. ¹⁸ Mouthing grandiosities of nothingness, they play on the desires of the old nature, in order to seduce with debaucheries people who have just begun to escape from those whose way of life is wrong.

¹⁹ They promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption; for a person is slave to whatever has defeated him. ²⁰ Indeed, if they have once escaped the pollutions of the world through knowing our Lord and Deliverer, Yeshua the Messiah, and then have again become entangled and defeated by them, their latter condition has become worse than their former. ²¹ It would have been better for them not to have known the Way of righteousness than, fully knowing, to turn from the holy command delivered to them. ²² What has happened to them accords with the true proverb, “A dog returns to its own vomit.”^[a] Yes, “The pig washed itself, only to wallow in the mud!”

3 Dear friends, I am writing you now this second letter; and in both letters I am trying to arouse you to wholesome thinking by means of reminders; ² so that you will keep in mind the predictions of the holy prophets and the command given by the Lord and Deliverer through your emissaries.

³ First, understand this: during the Last Days, scoffers will come, following their own desires ⁴ and asking, “Where is this promised ‘coming’ of his? For our fathers have died, and everything goes on just as it has since the beginning of creation.” ⁵ But, wanting so much to be right about this, they overlook the fact that it was by God’s Word that long ago there were heavens, and there was land which arose out of water and existed between the waters, ⁶ and that by means of these things the world of that time was flooded with water and destroyed. ⁷ It is by that same Word that the present heavens and earth, having been preserved, are being kept for fire until the Day of Judgment, when ungodly people will be destroyed.

⁸ Moreover, dear friends, do not ignore this: with the Lord, one day is like a thousand years and a thousand years like one day^{[b] 9} The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some people think of slowness; on the contrary, he is patient with you; for it is not his purpose that anyone should be destroyed, but that everyone should turn from his sins. ¹⁰ However, the Day of the Lord will come “like a thief.” On that Day the heavens will disappear with a roar, the elements will melt and disintegrate, and the earth and everything in it will be burned up.

¹¹ Since everything is going to be destroyed like this, what kind of people should you be? You should lead holy and godly lives, ¹² as you wait for the Day of God and work to hasten its coming. That Day will bring on the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt from the heat; ¹³ but we, following along with his promise, wait for new heavens and a new earth,^[c] in which righteousness will be at home. ¹⁴ Therefore, dear friends, as you look for these things, do everything you can to be found by him without spot or defect and at peace. ¹⁵ And think of our Lord’s patience as deliverance, just as our dear brother Sha’ul also wrote you, following the wisdom God gave him. ¹⁶ Indeed, he speaks about these things in all his letters. They contain some things that are hard to understand, things which the uninstructed and unstable distort, to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures.

¹⁷ But you, dear friends, since you know this in advance, guard yourselves; so that you will not be led away by the errors of the wicked and fall from your own secure position. ¹⁸ And keep growing in grace and knowledge of our Lord and Deliverer, Yeshua the Messiah. To him be the glory, both now and forever! Amen.

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.

2 But among the people there were also false prophets, just as there will be false teachers among you. Under false pretenses they will introduce destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, and thus bring on themselves swift destruction. ² Many will follow their debaucheries; and because of them, the true Way will be maligned. ³ In their greed they will exploit you with fabricated stories.

Their punishment, decreed long ago, is not idle; their destruction is not asleep! ⁴ For God did not spare the angels who sinned; on the contrary, he put them in gloomy dungeons lower than Sh’ol to be held for judgment. ⁵ And he did not spare the ancient world; on the contrary, he preserved Noach, a herald of righteousness, with seven others, and brought the Flood upon a world of ungodly people. ⁶ And he condemned the cities of S’dom and ‘Amora, reducing them to ashes and ruin, as a warning to those in the future who would live ungodly lives; ⁷ but he rescued Lot, a righteous man who was distressed by the debauchery of those unprincipled people; ⁸ for the wicked deeds which that righteous man saw and heard, as he lived among them, tormented his righteous heart day after day. ⁹ So the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials and how to hold the wicked until the Day of Judgment while continuing to punish them, ¹⁰ especially those who follow their old natures in lust for filth and who despise authority.

Presumptuous and self-willed, these false teachers do not tremble at insulting angelic beings; ¹¹ whereas angels, though stronger and more powerful, do not bring before the Lord an insulting charge against them. ¹² But these people, acting without thinking, like animals without reason, born to be captured and destroyed, insult things about which they have no knowledge. When they are destroyed, their destruction will be total — ¹³ they will be paid back harm as wages for the harm they are doing.

Their idea of pleasure is carousing in broad daylight; they are spots and defects reveling in their deceptions as they share meals with you — ¹⁴ for they have eyes always on the lookout for a woman who will commit adultery, eyes that never stop sinning; and they have a heart that has exercised itself in greed; so that they seduce unstable people. What a cursed brood!

¹⁵ These people have left the straight way and wandered off to follow the way of Bil‘am Ben-B‘or, who loved the wages of doing harm ¹⁶ but was rebuked for his sin — a dumb beast of burden spoke out with a human voice and restrained the prophet’s insanity! ¹⁷ Waterless springs they are, mists driven by a gust of wind; for them has been reserved the blackest darkness. ¹⁸ Mouthing grandiosities of nothingness, they play on the desires of the old nature, in order to seduce with debaucheries people who have just begun to escape from those whose way of life is wrong.

¹⁹ They promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption; for a person is slave to whatever has defeated him. ²⁰ Indeed, if they have once escaped the pollutions of the world through knowing our Lord and Deliverer, Yeshua the Messiah, and then have again become entangled and defeated by them, their latter condition has become worse than their former. ²¹ It would have been better for them not to have known the Way of righteousness than, fully knowing, to turn from the holy command delivered to them. ²² What has happened to them accords with the true proverb, “A dog returns to its own vomit.”^[a] Yes, “The pig washed itself, only to wallow in the mud!”

3 Dear friends, I am writing you now this second letter; and in both letters I am trying to arouse you to wholesome thinking by means of reminders; ² so that you will keep in mind the predictions of the holy prophets and the command given by the Lord and Deliverer through your emissaries.

³ First, understand this: during the Last Days, scoffers will come, following their own desires ⁴ and asking, “Where is this promised ‘coming’ of his? For our fathers have died, and everything goes on just as it has since the beginning of creation.” ⁵ But, wanting so much to be right about this, they overlook the fact that it was by God’s Word that long ago there were heavens, and there was land which arose out of water and existed between the waters, ⁶ and that by means of these things the world of that time was flooded with water and destroyed. ⁷ It is by that same Word that the present heavens and earth, having been preserved, are being kept for fire until the Day of Judgment, when ungodly people will be destroyed.

⁸ Moreover, dear friends, do not ignore this: with the Lord, one day is like a thousand years and a thousand years like one day^{[b] 9} The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some people think of slowness; on the contrary, he is patient with you; for it is not his purpose that anyone should be destroyed, but that everyone should turn from his sins. ¹⁰ However, the Day of the Lord will come “like a thief.” On that Day the heavens will disappear with a roar, the elements will melt and disintegrate, and the earth and everything in it will be burned up.

¹¹ Since everything is going to be destroyed like this, what kind of people should you be? You should lead holy and godly lives, ¹² as you wait for the Day of God and work to hasten its coming. That Day will bring on the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt from the heat; ¹³ but we, following along with his promise, wait for new heavens and a new earth,^[c] in which righteousness will be at home. ¹⁴ Therefore, dear friends, as you look for these things, do everything you can to be found by him without spot or defect and at peace. ¹⁵ And think of our Lord’s patience as deliverance, just as our dear brother Sha’ul also wrote you, following the wisdom God gave him. ¹⁶ Indeed, he speaks about these things in all his letters. They contain some things that are hard to understand, things which the uninstructed and unstable distort, to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures.

¹⁷ But you, dear friends, since you know this in advance, guard yourselves; so that you will not be led away by the errors of the wicked and fall from your own secure position. ¹⁸ And keep growing in grace and knowledge of our Lord and Deliverer, Yeshua the Messiah. To him be the glory, both now and forever! Amen.