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.

Grace and peace [that special sense of spiritual well-being] be multiplied to you in the [true, intimate] knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.

As his divine power has given to us all things which relate to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that has called us by glory and virtue,

through which he has given to us the greatest and precious promises, that through these ye may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.

Wherefore I shall be ready always to put you in remembrance of these things, though ye know them, and are established in the truth which is with you .

And this voice which came from heaven we heard, when we were with him in the holy mount.

And we have the prophetic word made surer, to which ye do well taking heed (as to a lamp shining in an obscure place) until the day dawn and the morning star arise in your hearts;

There were false prophets among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you: which privily shall bring in damnable sects, even denying the Lord that hath bought them, and bring upon themselves swift damnation.

And many people will follow their unrestrained, indecent conduct, which will result in the true way [of God] being spoken against.

And did not have mercy on the world which then was, but only kept safe Noah, a preacher of righteousness, with seven others, when he let loose the waters over the world of the evil-doers;

especially those who satisfy their lower nature by indulging in its evil passions which defile them, and who despise authority. Daring, headstrong men! They do not tremble when they abuse persons of majesty,

Whereas angels, which are greater in power and might, bring not railing accusation against them before the Lord.

But these [false teachers], like unreasoning animals, [mere] creatures of instinct, born to be captured and destroyed, reviling things they do not understand, will also perish in their own corruption [in their destroying they will be destroyed],

For the evil which overtakes them is the reward of their evil-doing: such men take their pleasure in the delights of the flesh even in the daytime; they are like the marks of a disease, like poisoned wounds among you, feasting together with you in joy;

Their very eyes are full of adultery--being eyes which never cease from sin. These men set traps to catch unstedfast souls, their own hearts being well trained in greed. They are fore-doomed to God's curse!

Which have forsaken the right way, and are gone astray, following the way of Balaam the son of Bosor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness;

These are fountains without water, and mists driven away by the storm, for which the blackness of darkness has been reserved.

They promise them liberty, whilst they themselves are slaves of corruption: for every one is enslaved by that which overcomes him.

For it would have been better for them not to have [personally] known the way of righteousness, than to have known it and then to have turned back from the holy commandment [verbally] handed on to them.

They are an example of that true saying, The dog has gone back to the food it had put out, and the pig which had been washed to its rolling in the dirty earth.

This second epistle, beloved, I now write unto you; in both which I stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance:

That ye may be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and of the commandment of us the apostles of the Lord and Saviour:

This first understand: that there shall come in the last days mockers, which will walk after their own lusts

For they willingly forget [the fact] that the heavens existed long ago by the word of God, and the earth was formed out of water and by water,

by which means the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished:

But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.

But there is one thing, dear friends, which you must not forget. With the Lord one day resembles a thousand years and a thousand years resemble one day.

The Lord is not slow in fulfilling His promise, in the sense in which some men speak of slowness. But He bears patiently with you, His desire being that no one 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.

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?

and for new heavens and a new earth according to His promise we do wait, in which righteousness doth dwell;

And consider the patience of our Lord [His delay in judging and avenging wrongs] as salvation [that is, allowing time for more to be saved]; just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given to him [by God],

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.