Beginning

Since God by his power has given them all things pertaining to life, he exhorts them to flee the corruption of worldly lust, and to make their calling sure with good works and fruits of faith. He makes mention of his own death, declaring the Lord to be the true Son of God, as he himself saw upon the mount.

1 Simon peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who have obtained like precious faith with us in the righteousness that comes of our God and Saviour Jesus Christ.

² Grace be with you, and peace be multiplied in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.

³ His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who has called us by virtue and glory, ⁴ by the means whereof are given to us excellent and most great promises, so that by the help of them you may be partakers of the divine nature, in that you flee the corruption of worldly lust.

⁵ And give all diligence to this. To your faith add virtue, and to virtue knowledge, ⁶ and to knowledge temperance, and to temperance patience, to patience godliness, ⁷ to godliness brotherly kindness, to brotherly kindness love. ⁸ For if these things be among you and abound, they will make you so that you will neither be idle nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. ⁹ But he who lacks these things is blind, and gropes for the way with his hands, and has forgotten that he was purged from his old sins.

¹⁰ Therefore, brethren, give the more diligence to make your calling and election sure. For if you do such things, you shall never err. ¹¹ Yea, and by this means a grand entering in will be given you into the ever-lasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

¹² And so I will not be negligent to put you always in mind of such things, though you know them yourselves, and are also established in the present truth. ¹³ Notwithstanding, I think it right, as long as I am in this tabernacle, to stir you up by putting you in remembrance. ¹⁴ For I am sure that the time is at hand that I must put off my tabernacle, even as our Lord Jesus Christ has shown me. ¹⁵ I will do my best to ensure, therefore, that on every side you have something with which to stir up the remembrance of these things after my departing.

¹⁶ For we were not following deceitful fables when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but with our own eyes we saw his majesty – ¹⁷ even then truly when he received from God the Father honour and glory, and when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory: This is my dear beloved Son, in whom I have delight. ¹⁸ This voice we heard when it came from heaven, being with him in the holy mount.

¹⁹ We have also a right sure word of prophecy, to which, if you take heed as to a light that shines in a dark place, you do well, until the day dawns and the day star arises in your hearts.  ²⁰ And first understand this: that no prophecy in the scripture has any private interpretation. ²¹ For the scripture never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.

He prophesies of false teachers, and shows their punishment.

2 There were false prophets among the people, even as there will be false teachers among you, who will slyly bring in damnable sects, even denying the Lord who has bought them, and bring upon themselves swift damnation. ² And many will follow their damnable ways, by which the way of truth will be ill spoken of. ³ And through covetousness they will with feigned words make merchandise of you. Their judgment is not far off, and their damnation sleeps not.

⁴ For God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down into hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be kept until the judgment. ⁵ And he did not spare the old world, but saved Noah, the preacher of righteousness, with seven others, and brought in the flood upon the world of the ungodly. ⁶ And he turned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, overthrew them, damned them, and made them an example to all who afterwards would live ungodly. ⁷ But just Lot, vexed with the unclean ways of the wicked, he delivered. ⁸ For he, being righteous, and dwelling among them, was vexed in his righteous soul from day to day, with seeing and hearing their unlawful deeds.

⁹ So then, the Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of affliction, and how to reserve the unjust for the day of judgment, to be punished; ¹⁰ namely those who walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanness, and despise authority. Presumptuous they are, and stubborn, and fear not to speak evil of those who are in authority, ¹¹ whereas the angels, who are greater both in power and might, do not bring railing judgment against them before the Lord. ¹² But these, like brute beasts by nature born to be captured and destroyed, speak evil of that which they do not understand, and shall perish through their own destruction, ¹³ and receive the reward of unrighteousness.

They count it pleasure to live deliciously for a season. Spots they are, and vileness, living at pleasure, and in deceptive ways feasting with you, ¹⁴ having eyes full of adultery, and that cannot cease to sin, beguiling unstable souls. Hearts they have exercised with covetousness. They are cursed children, ¹⁵ and have forsaken the right way, and have gone astray, following the way of Balaam, the son of Beor, who loved the reward of unrighteousness – ¹⁶ but was rebuked for his iniquity: the tame and dumb beast, speaking with man’s voice, opposed the foolishness of the prophet.

¹⁷ These are wells without water, and clouds carried about by a tempest, for whom the mist of darkness is reserved forever. ¹⁸ For when they have spoken the swelling words of vanity, they beguile with wantonness through the lusts of the flesh those who were clean escaped, but now are wrapped in errors. ¹⁹ They promise them liberty, and are themselves the bond-servants of corruption. For by whomever a person is overcome, to him he is in bondage.

²⁰ For if, after they have escaped from the corruption of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and of the Saviour Jesus Christ, they are yet tangled again in it and overcome, then is the latter end worse with them than the beginning. ²¹ For it would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment given to them. ²² It has happened to them according to the true proverb: The dog is turned to his vomit again, and the sow that was washed, to her wallowing in the mire.

He exhorts them to beware of such as say the day of the Lord is slack in coming. He urges them to lead a godly life, and to expect the Lord’s coming, whose long delay is salvation, because he would have none lost, but receive all to repentance.

3 This is the second epistle that I now write to you, beloveds, with which I stir up and warn your pure minds, ² to call to remembrance the words that were spoken before by the holy prophets, and also the commandment of us, the apostles of the Lord and Saviour.

³ This first understand: that there will come in the last days mockers, who will walk after their own lusts ⁴ and say, Where is the promise of his coming? For since the fathers died, all things continue in the same estate that they were in at the beginning. ⁵ This they are ignorant of (and that willingly): that the heavens a great while ago were, and the earth that was in the water appeared up out of the water by the word of God – ⁶ by which things the world that then was perished, overflowing with water. ⁷ But the heavens and earth which are now, are kept by the same word in store, and reserved for fire at the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.

⁸ Dearly beloveds, be not ignorant of 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 to fulfil his promise, as some count slackness, but is patient toward us, and would have no one lost, but would receive all to repentance. ¹⁰ Nevertheless, the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which day the heavens shall perish with terrible noise, and the elements shall melt with heat, and the earth with the works that are in it shall burn.

¹¹ If all these things will perish, what manner of persons ought you to be in holy living and godliness, ¹² looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, in which the heavens shall perish with fire and the elements shall be consumed with heat? ¹³ Nevertheless, we look for a new heaven and a new earth according to his promise, wherein righteousness dwells.

¹⁴ Therefore, dearly beloveds, seeing that you look for such things, be diligent to be found by him in peace, without spot and undefiled. ¹⁵ And count the longsuffering of the Lord to be salvation, even as our dearly beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given to him, wrote to you – ¹⁶ yea, in almost every epistle speaking of such things, among which are many things hard to understand, which those who are unlearned and unstable pervert, as they do other scriptures, to their own destruction.

¹⁷ You therefore, beloveds, seeing you know it beforehand, beware lest you also be plucked away with the error of the wicked and fall from your own steadfastness; ¹⁸ but grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

To whom be glory both
now and forever.
Amen.