Simon Peter, a slave and apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who through the uprightness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ have been given a faith as privileged as ours;

God bless you and give you perfect peace through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.

Therefore, brothers, make all the greater efforts to make God's call and choice of you certain. For if you have these qualities, you will never stumble,

For when he was so honored and glorified by God the Father and from the supreme glory there were borne to him such words as these: "This is my Son, my Beloved! He is my Chosen!"??18 we heard these words borne from heaven when we were with him on that sacred mountain.

for no prophecy ever originated in the human will, but under the influence of the holy Spirit men spoke for God.

For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but plunged them into Tartarus, and committed them to dark dungeons to await their doom,

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 they wilfully ignore the fact that long ago there existed heavens and an earth which had been formed at God's command out of water and by water,

while you await and hasten the coming of the Day of God, which will cause the heavens to burn up and dissolve and the heavenly bodies to blaze and melt.

Look upon our Lord's patience as salvation, just as our dear brother Paul, with the wisdom that God gave him, wrote you to do,