2 Peter 1-3

21st Century King James Version

1 Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ, To those who have obtained like precious faith with us through the righteousness of God and our Savior Jesus Christ:

² Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, according as

³ His divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him that hath called us to glory and virtue.

⁴ Thereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises, that by these you might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.

⁵ And besides this, using all diligence, add to your faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge,

⁶ and to knowledge temperance, and to temperance patience, and to patience godliness,

⁷ and to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness charity.

⁸ For if these things be in you and abound, they make you that ye shall be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

⁹ But he that lacketh these things is blind and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins.

¹⁰ Therefore brethren, give diligence all the more to make your calling and election sure, for if ye do these things ye shall never fall.

¹¹ For so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting Kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

¹² Therefore I will not be negligent to put you always in remembrance of these things, though ye know them and are strengthened in the present truth.

¹³ Yea, I think it meet, as long as I am in this tabernacle, to stir you up by putting you in remembrance,

¹⁴ knowing that shortly I must put off this my tabernacle, even as our Lord Jesus Christ hath shown me.

¹⁵ Moreover I will endeavor that you may be able after my decease to have these things always in remembrance.

¹⁶ 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.

¹⁷ For He received from God the Father honor 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.”

¹⁸ And this voice, which came from Heaven, we heard when we were with Him on the holy mount.

¹⁹ We have also a more sure word of prophecy, unto which ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn and the day star arise in your hearts,

²⁰ knowing this first: that no prophecy of the Scripture is of any private interpretation.

²¹ For the prophecy came not in olden times by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.

2 But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord who bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.

² And many shall follow their pernicious ways, by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evilly spoken of.

³ And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you — they whose judgment now for a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not.

⁴ For if God spared not the angels who sinned, but cast them down to hell and delivered them into chains of darkness to be reserved unto judgment;

⁵ 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;

⁶ and, turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemned them to be overthrown, making them an example unto those who thereafter should live ungodly;

⁷ and if He delivered righteous Lot, vexed with the filthy conduct of the wicked

⁸ (for that righteous man, having dwelt among them seeing and hearing, was vexed in his righteous soul day after day with their unlawful deeds)—

⁹ then the Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations and to reserve the unjust unto the Day of Judgment to be punished,

¹⁰ but chiefly those who walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanness, and despise governance. Presumptuous are they and selfwilled; they are not afraid to speak evil of dignities,

¹¹ whereas angels, which are greater in power and might, bring not railing accusation against them before the Lord.

¹² 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,

¹³ and shall receive the reward of unrighteousness, as those who count it pleasure to revel in the daytime. Spots they are and blemishes, sporting themselves with their own deceptions while they feast with you,

¹⁴ having eyes full of adultery and who cannot cease from sin, beguiling unstable souls; their hearts they have exercised with covetous practices; accursed children!

¹⁵ They have forsaken the right way and have gone astray, following the way of Balaam the son of Beor, who loved the wages ofunrighteousness,

¹⁶ but was rebuked for his iniquity: the dumb ass speaking with a man’s voice forbad the madness of the prophet.

¹⁷ These are wells without water, clouds that are carried by a tempest, for whom the mist of darkness is reserved for ever.

¹⁸ For when they speak great swelling words of vanity, they allure through the lusts of the flesh and through much wantonness those who had clean escaped from those who live in error.

¹⁹ While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption; for by whom a man is overcome, by the same is he brought into bondage.

²⁰ 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.

²¹ For it would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they had known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them.

²² But it has happened unto them according to the true proverb: “The dog turns to his own vomit again,” and, “the sow that was washed, to her wallowing in the mire.”

3 This second epistle, beloved, I now write unto you, in both of which I stir up your purity of mind by way of remembrance,

² that ye may be mindful of the words which were spoken beforehand by the holy prophets and of the commandment of us, the apostles of the Lord and Savior,

³ knowing this first: that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts

⁴ 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.”

⁵ For of this they are willfully ignorant: that by the Word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water,

⁶ whereby the world as it then was, being overflowed with water, perished.

⁷ But the heavens and the earth which now are, by the same Word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the Day of Judgment and perdition of ungodly men.

⁸ But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing: that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.

⁹ The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some men count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

¹⁰ But the Day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in 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.

¹¹ Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy manner of living and godliness,

¹² looking for and hastening 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?

¹³ Nevertheless we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.

¹⁴ Therefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for such things, be diligent that ye may be found by Him in peace, without spot and blameless.

¹⁵ And account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation, even as our beloved brother Paul also, according to the wisdom given unto him, hath written unto you,

¹⁶ as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things. Therein are some things hard to understand, which those who are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other Scriptures, unto their own destruction.

¹⁷ Ye therefore, beloved, seeing that ye know these things beforehand, beware lest ye also, being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own steadfastness.

¹⁸ But grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be glory both now and for ever. Amen.