Common - II Peter

Chapter 1

1:1  Simon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who have received a faith of the same kind as ours, by the righteousness of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ:

1:2  grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.

1:3  His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and excellence.

1:4  By these he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may escape from the corruption that is in the world because of lust, and become partakers of the divine nature.

1:5  For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith virtue; and to virtue, knowledge,

1:6  and to knowledge, self-control, and to self-control, perseverance, and to perseverance, godliness,

1:7  and to godliness, brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness, love.

1:8  For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

1:9  For whoever lacks these things is blind and shortsighted, and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins.

1:10  Therefore, brethren, be all the more eager to make your calling and election sure. For if you do these things, you will never fall;

1:11  so there will be an entrance richly provided for you into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

1:12  Therefore I will always remind you of these things, even though you know them and are firmly established in the truth you now have.

1:13  I think it right, as long as I am in this body, to stir you up by way of reminder,

1:14  since I know that the putting aside of my body will be soon, as our Lord Jesus Christ has made clear to me.

1:15  And I will see to it that after my departure you will be able at any time to call these things to mind.

1:16  For we did not follow cleverly devised tales when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty.

1:17  For he received honor and glory from God the Father when the voice came to him by the Majestic Glory, saying, "This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased."

1:18  We ourselves heard this voice coming from heaven when we were with him on the holy mountain.

1:19  And we have the prophetic word made more sure, and you will do well to pay attention to this as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.

1:20  First of all you must understand this, that no prophecy of scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation,

1:21  for no prophecy was ever made by the act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.

Chapter 2

2:1  But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will also be false teachers among you, who will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing swift destruction upon themselves.

2:2  And many will follow their licentiousness, and because of them the way of truth will be reviled.

2:3  And in their greed they will exploit you with false words; from long ago their condemnation has not been idle, and their destruction has not been asleep.

2:4  For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to pits of darkness, to be reserved for judgment;

2:5  and if he did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a preacher of righteousness, with seven others, when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly;

2:6  and if he condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to destruction by reducing them to ashes, having made them an example to those who would live ungodly thereafter;

2:7  and if he rescued Lot, a righteous man, who was distressed by the filthy lives of lawless men

2:8  (for by what he saw and heard that righteous man, while living among them, felt his righteous soul tormented day after day by their lawless deeds),

2:9  then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trial, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment,

2:10  and especially those who indulge the flesh in its corrupt desire and despise authority. Bold and willful, they are not afraid to revile the glorious ones,

2:11  whereas angels, though greater in power and might, do not bring a reviling judgment against them before the Lord.

2:12  But these, like irrational animals, creatures of instinct, born to be caught and killed, reviling in matters of which they are ignorant, will be destroyed in the same destruction with them,

2:13  suffering wrong for their wrongdoing. They count it a pleasure to revel in the daytime. They are blots and blemishes, reveling in their deceptions, as they carouse with you.

2:14  They have eyes full of adultery, that never cease from sin; they entice unstable souls. They have hearts trained in greed. Accursed children!

2:15  Forsaking the right way, they have gone astray, having followed the way of Balaam, the son of Beor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness;

2:16  but he was rebuked for his own transgression by a donkey—a beast without speech—who spoke with a man’s voice and restrained the prophet’s madness.

2:17  These are springs without water and mists driven by a storm; for them the blackest darkness has been reserved.

2:18  For speaking out arrogant words of vanity, they entice by fleshly desires, by sensuality, those who barely escape from the ones who live in error.

2:19  They promise them freedom, while they themselves are slaves of corruption; for whatever overcomes a man, to that he is enslaved.

2:20  For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world by the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and are overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first.

2:21  For it would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to turn away from the holy commandment handed on to them.

2:22  It has happened to them according to the true proverb, "A dog turns back to its own vomit," and, "A sow, after having washed, returns to wallowing in the mire."

Chapter 3

3:1  This is now the second letter that I have written to you, beloved, and in both of them I have aroused your sincere mind by way of reminder;

3:2  that you should remember the words spoken beforehand by the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior spoken through your apostles.

3:3  First of all you must understand this, that scoffers will come in the last days, with scoffing, following their own lusts

3:4  and saying, "Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation."

3:5  They deliberately ignore this fact, that by the word of God heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and by means of water,

3:6  through which the world at that time was destroyed, being deluged with water.

3:7  But by the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.

3:8  But do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day.

3:9  The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.

3:10  But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with fire, and the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up.

3:11  Since all these things are to be destroyed in this way, what sort of people ought you to be in holy lives and godliness,

3:12  looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be destroyed by fire, and the elements will melt with intense heat!

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

3:14  Therefore, beloved, since you look for these things, be diligent to be found by him in peace, spotless and blameless.

3:15  And regard the patience of our Lord as salvation; just as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given him, wrote to you.

3:16  He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction.

3:17  You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, be on your guard so that you are not carried away by the error of lawless men and fall from your own steadfastness.

3:18  But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.