Murdock - II Peter

Chapter 1

1:1  SIMON PETER, a servant and legate of Jesus the Messiah, to those who have obtained equally precious faith with us, through the righteousness of Our Lord and Redeemer, Jesus the Messiah ;

1:2  May grace and peace abound to you through the recognition of our Lord Jesus the Messiah,

1:3  as the giver to us of all things that be of the power of God, unto life and the fear of God, through the recognition of him who hath called us unto his own glory and moral excellence:

1:4  wherein he hath given you very great and precious promises; that by them ye might become partakers of the nature of God, while ye flee from the corruptions of the lusts that are in the world.

1:5  And, while ye apply all diligence in the matter, add to your faith moral excellence; and to moral excellence, knowledge;

1:6  and to knowledge, perseverance; and to perseverance, patience; and to patience, the fear of God;

1:7  and to the fear of God, sympathy with the brotherhood; and to sympathy with the brotherhood, love.

1:8  For, while these are found in you, and abounding, they render you not slothful, and not unfruitful, in the recognition of our Lord Jesus the Messiah.

1:9  For he, in whom these things are not found, is blind and seeth not, and hath forgotten the purgation of his former sins.

1:10  And therefore, my brethren, be ye exceedingly diligent to make your calling and election sure, by your good actions: for, by so doing, ye will never fall away.

1:11  For thus will entrance be given you abundantly, into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Redeemer Jesus the Messiah.

1:12  And for this reason I am not wearied in reminding you continually of these things; although ye know them well, and are established in this truth.

1:13  And it seemeth right to me, so long as I am in this body, to excite you by monition;

1:14  since I know, that the demise of my body is speedy, as also my Lord Jesus the Messiah hath showed me.

1:15  And I am anxious, that, after my departure, ye too may have it always with you to make mention of these things.

1:16  For we have not gone after fables artfully framed, in making known to you the power and advent of our Lord Jesus the Messiah; but it was after we had been spectators of his majesty.

1:17  For, when he received from God the Father honor and glory, and, after the splendid glory of his majesty, a voice came to him thus: This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased;

1:18  we also heard this identical voice from heaven, which came to him while we were with him in the holy mount.

1:19  And we have moreover a sure word of prophecy; and ye will do well, if ye look to it as to a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day shall dawn, and the sun shall arise in your hearts;

1:20  ye having the previous knowledge, that no prophecy is an exposition of its own text.

1:21  For at no time was it by the pleasure of man, that the prophecy came; but holy men of God spoke, as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.

Chapter 2

2:1  But in the world, there have been also false prophets, as there will likewise be false teachers among you, who will bring in destructive heresies, denying the Lord that bought them; thus bringing on themselves swift destruction.

2:2  And many will go after their profaneness; on account of whom, the way of truth will be reproached.

2:3  And, in the cupidity of raving words, they will make merchandise of you: whose judgment, of a long time, is not idle; and their destruction slumbereth not.

2:4  For, if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to the infernal regions in chains of darkness, and delivered them up to be kept unto the judgment of torture,

2:5  and spared not the former world, but preserved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, when he brought a flood on the world of the wicked;

2:6  and burned up the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, and condemned them by an overthrow, making them a demonstration to the wicked who should come after them;

2:7  and also delivered righteous Lot, who was tormented with the filthy conduct of the lawless;

2:8  for that upright man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing from day to day, was distressed in his righteous soul by their lawless deeds;

2:9  the Lord knoweth how to rescue from afflictions those who fear him; and he will reserve the wicked for the day of judgment to be tormented,

2:10  and especially them who go after the flesh in the lusts of pollution, and despise government. Daring and arrogant, they shudder not with awe while they blaspheme;

2:11  whereas angels, greater than they in might and valor, bring not against them a reproachful denunciation.

2:12  But these, like the dumb beasts that by nature are for slaughter and corruption, while reviling the things they know not, will perish in their own corruption;

2:13  they being persons with whom iniquity is the reward of iniquity, and by them rioting in the daytime is accounted delightful; defiled and full of spots are they, indulging themselves at their ease, while they give themselves up to pleasure;

2:14  having eyes that are full of adultery, and sins that never end; seducing unstable souls; and having a heart exercised in cupidity; children of malediction:

2:15  and, having left the way of rectitude, they have wandered and gone in the way of Balaam the son of Beor, who loved the wages of iniquity,

2:16  and who had for the reprover of his transgression a dumb ass, which, speaking with the speech of men, rebuked the madness of the prophet.

2:17  These are wells without water, clouds driven by a tempest, persons for whom is reserved the blackness of darkness.

2:18  For, while they utter astonishing vanity, they seduce, with obscene lusts of the flesh, them who have almost abandoned these that walk in error.

2:19  And they promise them liberty, while they themselves are the slaves of corruption: for, by whatever thing a man is vanquished, to that is he enslaved.

2:20  For if, when they have escaped the pollutions of the world by the knowledge of our Lord and Redeemer Jesus the Messiah, they become again involved in the same, and are vanquished, their latter state is worse than the former.

2:21  For it would have been better for them, not to have known the way of righteousness, than after having known it, to turn back from the holy commandment that was delivered to them.

2:22  But the true proverb hath happened to them: the dog returneth to his vomit and the sow that was washed, to her wallowing in the mire.

Chapter 3

3:1  This second epistle, my beloved, I now write to you; in both of which I stir up your honest mind by admonition:

3:2  that ye may be mindful of the words which were formerly spoken by the holy prophets, and of the injunction of our Lord and Redeemer by the hand of the legates:

3:3  knowing this previously, that there will come in the last days scoffers, who will scoff, walking according to their own lusts;

3:4  and saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for, since our fathers fell asleep, every thing remaineth just as from the beginning of the creation.

3:5  For this they willingly forget, that the heavens were of old; and the earth rose up from the waters, and by means of water, by the word of God.

3:6  And, by means of these waters, the world which then was, being submerged again perished in the waters.

3:7  And the heavens that now are, and the earth, are by his word stored up, being reserved for the fire at the day of judgment and the perdition of wicked men.

3:8  And of this one thing, my beloved, be not forgetful, That one day, to the Lord, is as a thousand years; and a thousand years, as one day.

3:9  The Lord doth not procrastinate his promises, as some estimate procrastination; but he is long suffering, for your sakes, being not willing that any should perish, but that every one should come to repentance.

3:10  And the day of the Lord will come, like a thief; in which the heavens will suddenly pass away; and the elements, being ignited, will be dissolved; and the earth and the works in it, will not be found.

3:11  As therefore all these things are to be dissolved, what persons ought ye to be, in holy conduct, and in the fear of God,

3:12  expecting and desiring the coming of the day of God, in which the heavens being tried by fire will be dissolved, and the elements being ignited will melt?

3:13  But we, according to his promise, expect new heavens, and a new earth, in which righteousness dwelleth.

3:14  Therefore, my beloved, as ye expect these things, strive that ye may be found by him in peace, without spot and without blemish.

3:15  And account the long suffering of the Lord to be redemption; as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom conferred on him, wrote to you;

3:16  as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things, in which there is something difficult to be understood; and which they who are ignorant and unstable, pervert, as they do also the rest of the scriptures, to their own destruction.

3:17  Ye therefore, my beloved, as ye know these things beforehand, guard yourselves, lest, by going after the error of the lawless, ye fall from your steadfastness.

3:18  But be ye growing in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Redeemer Jesus the Messiah, and of God the Father: whose is the glory, now, and always, and to the days of eternity. Amen.