2 Peter 3

¹ My dear friends, this is the second letter I have written to you, trying to awaken in you by my remindersan unclouded understanding.

² Remember what was said in the past by the holy prophets and the command of the Lord and Saviourgiven by your apostles.

³ First of al , do not forget that in the final days there wil come sarcastic scoffers whose life is ruled bytheir passions.

⁴ 'What has happened to the promise of his coming?' they wil say, 'Since our Fathers died everythinghas gone on just as it has since the beginning of creation!'

⁵ They deliberately ignore the fact that long ago there were the heavens and the earth, formed out ofwater and through water by the Word of God,

⁶ and that it was through these same factors that the world of those days was destroyed by thefloodwaters.

⁷ It is the same Word which is reserving the present heavens and earth for fire, keeping them til the Dayof Judgement and of the destruction of sinners.

⁸ But there is one thing, my dear friends, that you must never forget: that with the Lord, a day is like athousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.

⁹ The Lord is not being slow in carrying out his promises, as some people think he is; rather is he beingpatient with you, wanting nobody to be lost and everybody to be brought to repentance.

¹⁰ The Day of the Lord wil come like a thief, and then with a roar the sky wil vanish, the elements wilcatch fire and melt away, the earth and al that it contains wil be burned up.

¹¹ Since everything is coming to an end like this, what holy and saintly lives you should be living

¹² while you wait for the Day of God to come, and try to hasten its coming: on that Day the sky wildissolve in flames and the elements melt in the heat.

¹³ What we are waiting for, relying on his promises, is the new heavens and new earth, whereuprightness will be at home.

¹⁴ So then, my dear friends, while you are waiting, do your best to live blameless and unsul ied lives sothat he wil find you at peace.

¹⁵ Think of our Lord's patience as your opportunity to be saved; our brother Paul, who is so dear to us,told you this when he wrote to you with the wisdom that he was given.

¹⁶ He makes this point too in his letters as a whole wherever he touches on these things. In al his lettersthere are of course some passages which are hard to understand, and these are the ones that uneducated andunbalanced people distort, in the same way as they distort the rest of scripture -to their own destruction.

¹⁷ Since you have been forewarned about this, my dear friends, be careful that you do not come to thepoint of losing the firm ground that you are standing on, carried away by the errors of unprincipled people.

¹⁸ Instead, continue to grow in the grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Tohim be glory, in time and eternity. Amen.