SECOND PETER

2nd Peter1This letter is from Simon Peter, a

slave and apostle of Jesus Christ. I amwriting to all of you who share the sameprecious faith we have, faith given to usby Jesus Christ, our God and Savior,who makes us right with God.2May God bless you with his specialfavor and wonderful peace as you cometo know Jesus, our God and Lord, betterand better.3As we know Jesus better, his divinepower gives us everything we need forliving a godly life. He has called us toreceive his own glory and goodness!4And by that same mighty power, he hasgiven us all of his rich and wonderfulpromises. He has promised that you willescape the decadence all around youcaused by evil desires and that you willshare in his divine nature.5So make every effort to apply thebenefits of these promises to your life.Then your faith will produce a life ofmoral excellence. A life of moralexcellence leads to knowing God better.6Knowing God leads to self-control. Selfcontrolleads to patient endurance, andpatient endurance leads to godliness.7Godliness leads to love for otherChristians, and finally you will grow tohave genuine love for everyone.8The more you grow like this, the moreyou will become productive and useful inyour knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.9But those who fail to develop thesevirtues are blind or, at least, veryshortsighted. They have alreadyforgotten that God has cleansed themfrom their old life of sin.10So, dear brothers and sisters, workhard to prove that you really are amongthose God has called and chosen.Doing this, you will never stumble or fallaway.11And God will open wide the gates ofheaven for you to enter into the eternalKingdom of our Lord and Savior JesusChrist.12I plan to keep on reminding you ofthese things--even though you alreadyknow them and are standing firm in thetruth.13Yes, I believe I should keep onreminding you of these things as long asI live.

14But the Lord Jesus Christ has shownme that my days here on earth arenumbered and I am soon to die.15So I will work hard to make thesethings clear to you. I want you toremember them long after I am gone.16For we were not making up cleverstories when we told you about thepower of our Lord Jesus Christ and hiscoming again. We have seen hismajestic splendor with our own eyes.17And he received honor and glory fromGod the Father when God's glorious,majestic voice called down from heaven,"This is my beloved Son; I am fullypleased with him."18We ourselves heard the voice whenwe were there with him on the holymountain.19Because of that, we have even greaterconfidence in the message proclaimedby the prophets. Pay close attention towhat they wrote, for their words are likea light shining in a dark place--until theday Christ appears and his brilliant lightshines in your hearts.20Above all, you must understand thatno prophecy in Scripture ever camefrom the prophets themselves21or because they wanted to prophesy. Itwas the Holy Spirit who moved theprophets to speak from God.

2But there were also false prophets in

Israel, just as there will be falseteachers among you. They will cleverlyteach their destructive heresies aboutGod and even turn against their Masterwho bought them. Theirs will be a swiftand terrible end.2Many will follow their evil teaching andshameful immorality. And because ofthem, Christ and his true way will beslandered.3In their greed they will make up cleverlies to get hold of your money. But Godcondemned them long ago, and theirdestruction is on the way.4For God did not spare even the angelswhen they sinned; he threw them intohell, in gloomy caves and darkness untilthe judgment day.5And God did not spare the ancientworld--except for Noah and his family ofseven. Noah warned the world of God'srighteous judgment. Then Goddestroyed the whole world of ungodlypeople with a vast flood.6Later, he turned the cities of Sodom

SECOND PETER

and Gomorrah into heaps of ashes andswept them off the face of the earth. Hemade them an example of what willhappen to ungodly people.7But at the same time, God rescued Lotout of Sodom because he was a goodman who was sick of all the immoralityand wickedness around him.8Yes, he was a righteous man who wasdistressed by the wickedness he sawand heard day after day.9So you see, the Lord knows how torescue godly people from their trials,even while punishing the wicked right upuntil the day of judgment.10He is especially hard on those whofollow their own evil, lustful desires andwho despise authority. These peopleare proud and arrogant, daring even toscoff at the glorious ones without somuch as trembling.11But the angels, even though they arefar greater in power and strength thanthese false teachers, never speak outdisrespectfully against the glorious ones.12These false teachers are likeunthinking animals, creatures of instinct,who are born to be caught and killed.They laugh at the terrifying powers theyknow so little about, and they will bedestroyed along with them.13Their destruction is their reward for theharm they have done. They love toindulge in evil pleasures in broaddaylight. They are a disgrace and astain among you. They revel indeceitfulness while they feast with you.14They commit adultery with their eyes,and their lust is never satisfied. Theymake a game of luring unstable peopleinto sin. They train themselves to begreedy; they are doomed and cursed.15They have wandered off the right roadand followed the way of Balaam son ofBeor, who loved to earn money by doingwrong.16But Balaam was stopped from his madcourse when his donkey rebuked himwith a human voice.17These people are as useless as driedupsprings of water or as clouds blownaway by the wind--promising much anddelivering nothing. They are doomed toblackest darkness.18They brag about themselves withempty, foolish boasting. With lustfuldesire as their bait, they lure back intosin those who have just escaped fromsuch wicked living.

19They promise freedom, but theythemselves are slaves to sin andcorruption. For you are a slave towhatever controls you.20And when people escape from thewicked ways of the world by learningabout our Lord and Savior Jesus Christand then get tangled up with sin andbecome its slave again, they are worseoff than before.21It would be better if they had neverknown the right way to live than to knowit and then reject the holycommandments that were given to them.22They make these proverbs come true:"A dog returns to its vomit," and "Awashed pig returns to the mud."

3This is my second letter to you, dear

friends, and in both of them I have triedto stimulate your wholesome thinkingand refresh your memory.2I want you to remember andunderstand what the holy prophets saidlong ago and what our Lord and Saviorcommanded through your apostles.3First, I want to remind you that in thelast days there will be scoffers who willlaugh at the truth and do every evil thingthey desire.4This will be their argument: "Jesuspromised to come back, did he? Thenwhere is he? Why, as far back asanyone can remember, everything hasremained exactly the same since theworld was first created."5They deliberately forget that God madethe heavens by the word of hiscommand, and he brought the earth upfrom the water and surrounded it withwater.6Then he used the water to destroy theworld with a mighty flood.7And God has also commanded that theheavens and the earth will be consumedby fire on the day of judgment, whenungodly people will perish.8But you must not forget, dear friends,that a day is like a thousand years to theLord, and a thousand years is like a day.9The Lord isn't really being slow abouthis promise to return, as some peoplethink. No, he is being patient for yoursake. He does not want anyone toperish, so he is giving more time foreveryone to repent.10But the day of the Lord will come asunexpectedly as a thief. Then theheavens will pass away with a terrible

SECOND PETER

noise, and everything in them willdisappear in fire, and the earth andeverything on it will be exposed tojudgment.11Since everything around us is going tomelt away, what holy, godly lives youshould be living!12You should look forward to that dayand hurry it along--the day when Godwill set the heavens on fire and theelements will melt away in the flames.13But we are looking forward to the newheavens and new earth he haspromised, a world where everyone isright with God.14And so, dear friends, while you arewaiting for these things to happen, makeevery effort to live a pure and blamelesslife. And be at peace with God.15And remember, the Lord is waiting sothat people have time to be saved. Thisis just as our beloved brother Paul wroteto you with the wisdom God gave him--16speaking of these things in all of hisletters. Some of his comments are hardto understand, and those who areignorant and unstable have twisted hisletters around to mean something quitedifferent from what he meant, just asthey do the other parts of Scripture--andthe result is disaster for them.17I am warning you ahead of time, dearfriends, so that you can watch out andnot be carried away by the errors ofthese wicked people. I don't want you tolose your own secure footing.18But grow in the special favor andknowledge of our Lord and Savior JesusChrist. To him be all glory and honor,both now and forevermore. Amen.