Simon Peter, a bondservant and Apostle of Jesus Christ: To those to whom there has been allotted the same precious faith as that which is ours through the righteousness of our God and of our Saviour Jesus Christ.

May grace and peace be lavished on you as you grow in the rich knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord!

According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue:

For it was through this that he gave us what we prize as the greatest of his promises, that through them you might participate in the divine nature, now that you have fled from the corruption in the world, resulting from human passions.

for these things existing and abounding in you make you to be neither idle nor unfruitful as regards the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ;

For this reason, brethren, be all the more in earnest to make sure that God has called you and chosen you; for it is certain that so long as you practise these things, you will never stumble.

Hence I mean to keep on reminding you of this, although you are aware of it and are fixed in the Truth as it is;

Yea, I think it meet, as long as I am in this tabernacle, to stir you up by putting you in remembrance;

Knowing that shortly I must put off this my tabernacle, even as our Lord Jesus Christ hath shewed me.

However, I shall inculcate these things so as to make you continually remember them, even after my departure.

For, not as having followed, cleverly devised stories, made we known unto you the power and presence of our Lord Jesus Christ, but as having been made, spectators, of his majesty.

For [he] received honor and glory from God the Father [when] a voice such as this was brought to him by the Majestic Glory, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased."

We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts:

For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.

But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.

Many will follow their immoral ways, and as a result, the way of the truth will be maligned.

and having reduced the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha to ashes, condemned them with an overthrow, setting them as an example to those that should afterwards live an ungodly life;

and saved the upright Lot who was so distressed by the immoral conduct of unprincipled men??8 for as long as that upright man lived among them, day after day his upright soul was tormented by what he saw and heard of their lawless actions??9 then the Lord knows how to rescue God-fearing people from trial and to punish wrongdoers while they are being kept for the Day of Judgment,

(for that righteous man, [as he] lived among them day after day, was tormenting [his] righteous soul by the lawless deeds [he was] seeing and hearing),

and especially those who go after the flesh in defiling lust and who despise authority. Bold [and] arrogant, they do not tremble in awe [as they] blaspheme majestic beings,

But these, as natural brute beasts, made to be taken and destroyed, speak evil of the things that they understand not; and shall utterly perish in their own corruption;

And shall receive the reward of unrighteousness, as they that count it pleasure to riot in the day time. Spots they are and blemishes, sporting themselves with their own deceivings while they feast with you;

they have gone wrong by leaving the straight road, by following the road of Balaam son of Bosor, who liked the profits of evil-doing ??16 but he got reproved for his malpractice: a dumb ass spoke with human voice and checked the prophet's infatuation.

But was rebuked for his iniquity: the dumb ass speaking with man's voice forbad the madness of the prophet.

For, while they pour out their frivolous and arrogant talk, they use earthly cravings--every kind of immorality--as a bait to entrap men who are just escaping from the influence of those who live in error.

As for those who have renounc'd the pollutions of the world, by their owning Jesus Christ for their Lord and saviour, if they are prevail'd upon to be entangled therein again, their last state is worse than the first.

There hath befallen them the thing spoken of in the true proverb - A dog, turning back unto his own vomit, and - A sow, as soon as washed, unto wallowing in mire.

My loved ones, this is now my second letter to you, and in this as in the first, I am attempting to keep your true minds awake;

I want you to recall what was foretold by the holy Prophets, as well as the Command of our Lord and Savior given to you through your Apostles.

First be assured of this, that, as the age draws to an end, scoffers, led by their own passions,

And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.

For they are willingly ignorant of this, that by the word of God, the heavens of old had their being as also the earth consisting of water and subsisting by water,

But, beloved, 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.

The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.

Now as all things are thus to be dissolved, what holy and pious men ought you to be in your behaviour,

[while] waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be destroyed [by] being burned up and the celestial bodies will melt [as they] are consumed by heat!

It is new heavens and a new earth that we expect, as He has promised, and in them dwells righteousness.

Wherefore, beloved, as ye wait for these things, be diligent to be found of him in peace, without spot and blameless;

And account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you;

As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction.

You, therefore, dear friends, having been warned beforehand, must continually be on your guard so as not to be led astray by the false teaching of immoral men nor fall from your own stedfastness.