THE SECOND GENERAL EPISTLE OF PETER CHAPTER ONE Simon Peter A servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ to them that have obtained like precious faiths with us through the righteousness of God and our Savior Jesus Christ. Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that has called us to glory and virtue, whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises, that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. And besides this, given all diligence, Add to your faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge, and to knowledge temperance, and to temperance patience, and to patience godliness, and to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness charity. For if these things be in you and abound, they make you that you shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But he that lacketh these things is blind. and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins. Wherefore, the rather brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure, for if you do these things you shall never fall, for so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Wherefore, I will not be negligent to put you always in remembrance of these things, though ye know them and be established in the present truth. Yea, I think it meet, as long as I am in this tabernacle to stir you up by putting you in remembrance, knowing that shortly I must put off this my tabernacle, even as our Lord Jesus Christ has showed me. Moreover, I will endeavor that you may be able, after my decease, to have these things always in remembrance. For we have not followed cunningly devised fables when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. but were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For he received from God the Father honour and glory, when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory. This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. In this voice which came from heaven we heard, when we were with them in the Holy Mount. We have also a more sure word of prophecy, whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, is unto a light that shineth in a dark place. until the day dawn and the day star arise in your hearts. Knowing this first, there is no prophecy of the scriptures of any private interpretation, for the prophecy came not in old time but the will of man. Holy men of God speak as they are moved by the Holy Ghost. Chapter 2 But there were false prophets also among the people. Even if there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, Even denying the Lord to bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction. And many shall follow their pernicious ways, by reason of whom the way of truth shall be bespoken of. And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you, whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not. For if God spared not the angels that sinned, becath them down to hell, and delivered them in the chains of darkness to be reserved unto judgment, and spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly, and turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes condemned them with an overthrow, making them an example unto those that after should live ungodly and deliver just lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked. For that righteous man dwelleth among them, and seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds. The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished. but chiefly them that walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanness and despise government. Presumptuous are they, self-willed. They are not afraid to speak evil of dignities, whereas angels, which are greater in power and might, bring not railing accusation against them before the Lord, but these, as natural brute beasts made to be taken and destroyed, speak evil of the things that they understand not, and shall utterly perish in their own corruption, and shall receive the reward of unrighteousness, as they that count it pleasure to riot in the daytime. Spots they are in blemishes, sporting themselves with their own deceivings while they feast with you, have an eyes full of adultery, and they cannot cease from sin, beguiling unstable souls, and hard to have exercised with covetous practices. Cursed children, which have forsaken the right way and are gone astray following the way of Balaam, the son of Bosor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness, but was rebuked for his iniquity. The dumb ass, speaking with man's voice, forbade the madness of the prophet. These are wells without water. clouds that are carried with a tempest, to whom the mist of darkness is reserved forever. For when they speak great swelling words of vanity, they allure through the lusts of the flesh. Through much wantonness, those that were clean escape from them who live in error. While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption, for of whom a man is overcome of the same as he brought in bondage. For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, They are again entangled therein and overcome. The latter end is worse with them than the beginning. For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness than after they have known it to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them. But it has happened unto them, according to the true proverb, that dog is turned to his own vomit again, and a sow that was washed, or a wallowing in a mire. Chapter 3 The second epistle, beloved, I now write unto you. in both which I stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance, that ye may be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and of the commandment of us the apostles of the Lord and Saviour, knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, and saying, Where is the promise of his coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. For this they are willingly ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water. whereby the world that then was being overflowed with water perished, but the heavens and the earth which are now, by the same order kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men. But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, is some in count slackness, but is long-suffering to usward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, into which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat. The earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up. Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness, looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God? wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat. Nevertheless, we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for such things, be diligent, that ye may be found of him in peace, without spot, and blameless, and account to the long-suffering of our Lord his salvation. Even as our beloved brother Paul also, according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you, is also in all his epistles speaking of them of the things, in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable rest, as they do also the other scriptures. unto their own destruction. Ye therefore, beloved, seeing ye know the things before, beware lest ye also, being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own steadfastness, but grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To Him be glory both now and forever. Amen.