Montgomery - II Peter - 3

3:1  This is now my second letter to you, beloved. In both of them I am stirring up your pure minds by putting you in remembrance.

3:2  I want you to recollect the words that were foretold by the holy prophets, and the command of your Lord and Saviour, given you through your apostles.

3:3  Know this first, that mockers will come in the last days, in their mockery, men who walk the way of their own lusts

3:4  and say, "Where is the promise of His coming? For since the day that our fathers fell asleep everything continues as it was from the beginning of the creation."

3:5  For they willingly ignore the fact that there were heaven, from of old, and an earth formed out of water and through water, by the word of God;

3:6  and that by the same means the world which then existed was destroyed by a deluge of water.

3:7  But the heavens and earth that now are, by the same word of God, have been reserved for fire, and are being kept for the Day of Judgment, and for the destruction of ungodly men.

3:8  Do not forget this one thing, beloved, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.

3:9  The Lord does not loiter over his promise, as some men esteem loitering; but he is longsuffering toward you, not purposing that any should perish, but that all should pass on to repentance.

3:10  But the Day of the Lord will come like a thief; and on that Day the heavens will vanish with a crash, the heavenly bodies will melt with fervent heat, and the earth and all its works will be burned up.

3:11  Now since all things are in the process of dissolution, what kind of men ought you to be, in all holy living and piety;

3:12  while you look for and hasten the coming of the Day of God. At its coming the heavens, being on fire, will be dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt with fervent heat.

3:13  But according to his promise, we are looking for new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness makes her dwelling.

3:14  And so, beloved, since you are looking for these things, continually give diligence that you may be found in peace, unspotted and blameless in his sight.

3:15  Regard our Lord’s longsuffering as salvation; even as our dear brother Paul also wrote to you, according to the wisdom given to him.

3:16  It is the same in all his letters when he speaks of these things. There are indeed some things in his letters hard to understand, which the ignorant and the shifty wrest, as also they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction.

3:17  Do you therefore, beloved, because you know these things beforehand, be on your guard lest you be led astray by the error of the wicked, and so fall from your own stedfastness.

3:18  But grow continually in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory both now and unto the Day of Eternity, Amen.