Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ, to them which have obtained like precious faith with us in the righteousness that cometh of our God and 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 all things of his divine power to us, things toward life and piety, which were granted through the knowledge of him who called us through glory and virtue.

Because of which, the precious and greatest promises have been given to us, so that through these ye might become companions of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption in the world in 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 we heard this voice, which was brought out of heaven, being with him on the holy mountain.

And we have the prophetic word sure, to which ye do well giving heed, as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns, and the daystar arises 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 shall follow their damnable ways, by which the way of truth shall be evil spoken of;

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 men, like irrational beasts of nature, having been born for capture and destruction, speaking evil at which things they do not understand, will be destroyed in their corruption,

suffering wrong as the wage of wrong which they have done. These are men who count it pleasure to carouse in open daylight; they are spots and blemishes reveling in their deceit, even while they are feasting with you.

having eyes full of adultery, and which cannot be restrained from sin: ensnaring unstable souls, and having a heart practised in rapine; cursed people:

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, while they themselves are slaves of rottenness! (For indeed a man is the slave of anything which masters him.)

For it would have been better for them to have had no knowledge of the way of righteousness, than to go back again from the holy law which was given to them, after having knowledge of it.

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.

I write to you now this second letter, beloved, in which I arouse your sincere mind by a reminder,

that ye should remember the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and the commandments of the Lord and Saviour through your apostles:

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 now the heavens and the earth, which have been stored up by the same word, are being preserved for fire in a day of judgment and destruction of irreverent men.

But there is one thing, my brethren, you ought to be appriz'd of, which is this, that "with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day."

The Lord is not slow about His promise, in the sense in which some think of slowness, but He is really dealing patiently with you, because He is not willing for any to perish but for all to have an opportunity to repent?

But the day of the Lord will come as a thief; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall be dissolved with fervent heat, and the earth 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?

But we anticipate a new heavens and a new earth according to his promise, in which righteousness dwells.

And be certain that the long waiting of the Lord is for salvation; even as our brother Paul has said in his letters to you, from the wisdom which was given to him;

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