¹From Simon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ— To those who through the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ have been given a faith as precious as ours:

²May grace and peace be yours in full measure through your knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.

God's Call and Choice

³God's divine power has given us everything we need to live a truly religious life through our knowledge of the one who called us to share in his own glory and goodness.

⁴In this way he has given us the very great and precious gifts he promised, so that by means of these gifts you may escape from the destructive lust that is in the world, and may come to share the divine nature.

⁵For this very reason do your best to add goodness to your faith; to your goodness add knowledge;

⁶to your knowledge add self-control; to your self-control add endurance; to your endurance add godliness;

⁷to your godliness add Christian affection; and to your Christian affection add love.

⁸These are the qualities you need, and if you have them in abundance, they will make you active and effective in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

⁹But if you do not have them, you are so shortsighted that you cannot see and have forgotten that you have been purified from your past sins.

¹⁰So then, my friends, try even harder to make God's call and his choice of you a permanent experience; if you do so, you will never abandon your faith.

¹¹In this way you will be given the full right to enter the eternal Kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

¹²And so I will always remind you of these matters, even though you already know them and are firmly grounded in the truth you have received.

¹³I think it only right for me to stir up your memory of these matters as long as I am still alive.

¹⁴I know that I shall soon put off this mortal body, as our Lord Jesus Christ plainly told me.

¹⁵I will do my best, then, to provide a way for you to remember these matters at all times after my death.

Eyewitnesses of Christ's Glory

¹⁶We have not depended on made-up stories in making known to you the mighty coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. With our own eyes we saw his greatness.

¹⁷We were there when he was given honor and glory by God the Father, when the voice came to him from the Supreme Glory, saying, “This is my own dear Son, with whom I am pleased!”

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

¹⁹So we are even more confident of the message proclaimed by the prophets. You will do well to pay attention to it, because it is like a lamp shining in a dark place until the Day dawns and the light of the morning star shines in your hearts.

²⁰Above all else, however, remember that none of us can explain by ourselves a prophecy in the Scriptures.

²¹For no prophetic message ever came just from the human will, but people were under the control of the Holy Spirit as they spoke the message that came from God.

False Teachers

¹False prophets appeared in the past among the people, and in the same way false teachers will appear among you. They will bring in destructive, untrue doctrines, and will deny the Master who redeemed them, and so they will bring upon themselves sudden destruction.

²Even so, many will follow their immoral ways; and because of what they do, others will speak evil of the Way of truth.

³In their greed these false teachers will make a profit out of telling you made-up stories. For a long time now their Judge has been ready, and their Destroyer has been wide awake!

⁴God did not spare the angels who sinned, but threw them into hell, where they are kept chained in darkness, waiting for the Day of Judgment.

⁵God did not spare the ancient world, but brought the flood on the world of godless people; the only ones he saved were Noah, who preached righteousness, and seven other people.

⁶God condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, destroying them with fire, and made them an example of what will happen to the godless.

⁷He rescued Lot, a good man, who was distressed by the immoral conduct of lawless people.

⁸That good man lived among them, and day after day he suffered agony as he saw and heard their evil actions.

⁹And so the Lord knows how to rescue godly people from their trials and how to keep the wicked under punishment for the Day of Judgment,

¹⁰especially those who follow their filthy bodily lusts and despise God's authority. These false teachers are bold and arrogant, and show no respect for the glorious beings above; instead, they insult them.

¹¹Even the angels, who are so much stronger and mightier than these false teachers, do not accuse them with insults in the presence of the Lord.

¹²But these people act by instinct, like wild animals born to be captured and killed; they attack with insults anything they do not understand. They will be destroyed like wild animals,

¹³and they will be paid with suffering for the suffering they have caused. Pleasure for them is to do anything in broad daylight that will satisfy their bodily appetites; they are a shame and a disgrace as they join you in your meals, all the while enjoying their deceitful ways!

¹⁴They want to look for nothing but the chance to commit adultery; their appetite for sin is never satisfied. They lead weak people into a trap. Their hearts are trained to be greedy. They are under God's curse!

¹⁵They have left the straight path and have lost their way; they have followed the path taken by Balaam son of Beor, who loved the money he would get for doing wrong

¹⁶and was rebuked for his sin. His donkey spoke with a human voice and stopped the prophet's insane action.

¹⁷These people are like dried-up springs, like clouds blown along by a storm; God has reserved a place for them in the deepest darkness.

¹⁸They make proud and stupid statements, and use immoral bodily lusts to trap those who are just beginning to escape from among people who live in error.

¹⁹They promise them freedom while they themselves are slaves of destructive habits—for we are slaves of anything that has conquered us.

²⁰If people have escaped from the corrupting forces of the world through their knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and then are again caught and conquered by them, such people are in worse condition at the end than they were at the beginning.

²¹It would have been much better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than to know it and then turn away from the sacred command that was given them.

²²What happened to them shows that the proverbs are true: “A dog goes back to what it has vomited” and “A pig that has been washed goes back to roll in the mud.”

The Promise of the Lord's Coming

¹My dear friends, this is now the second letter I have written you. In both letters I have tried to arouse pure thoughts in your minds by reminding you of these things.

²I want you to remember the words that were spoken long ago by the holy prophets, and the command from the Lord and Savior which was given you by your apostles.

³First of all, you must understand that in the last days some people will appear whose lives are controlled by their own lusts. They will make fun of you

⁴and will ask, “He promised to come, didn't he? Where is he? Our ancestors have already died, but everything is still the same as it was since the creation of the world!”

⁵They purposely ignore the fact that long ago God gave a command, and the heavens and earth were created. The earth was formed out of water and by water,

⁶and it was also by water, the water of the flood, that the old world was destroyed.

⁷But the heavens and the earth that now exist are being preserved by the same command of God, in order to be destroyed by fire. They are being kept for the day when godless people will be judged and destroyed.

⁸But do not forget one thing, my dear friends! There is no difference in the Lord's sight between one day and a thousand years; to him the two are the same.

⁹The Lord is not slow to do what he has promised, as some think. Instead, he is patient with you, because he does not want anyone to be destroyed, but wants all to turn away from their sins.

¹⁰But the Day of the Lord will come like a thief. On that Day the heavens will disappear with a shrill noise, the heavenly bodies will burn up and be destroyed, and the earth with everything in it will vanish.

¹¹Since all these things will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people should you be? Your lives should be holy and dedicated to God,

¹²as you wait for the Day of God and do your best to make it come soon—the Day when the heavens will burn up and be destroyed, and the heavenly bodies will be melted by the heat.

¹³But we wait for what God has promised: new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness will be at home.

¹⁴And so, my friends, as you wait for that Day, do your best to be pure and faultless in God's sight and to be at peace with him.

¹⁵Look on our Lord's patience as the opportunity he is giving you to be saved, just as our dear friend Paul wrote to you, using the wisdom that God gave him.

¹⁶This is what he says in all his letters when he writes on the subject. There are some difficult things in his letters which ignorant and unstable people explain falsely, as they do with other passages of the Scriptures. So they bring on their own destruction.

¹⁷But you, my friends, already know this. Be on your guard, then, so that you will not be led away by the errors of lawless people and fall from your safe position.

¹⁸But continue to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory, now and forever! Amen.

A Life That Pleases God

¹Finally, our friends, you learned from us how you should live in order to please God. This is, of course, the way you have been living. And now we beg and urge you in the name of the Lord Jesus to do even more.

²For you know the instructions we gave you by the authority of the Lord Jesus.

³God wants you to be holy and completely free from sexual immorality.

⁴Each of you should know how to live with your wife in a holy and honorable way,

⁵not with a lustful desire, like the heathen who do not know God.

⁶In this matter, then, none of you should do wrong to other Christians or take advantage of them. We have told you this before, and we strongly warned you that the Lord will punish those who do that.

⁷God did not call us to live in immorality, but in holiness.

⁸So then, whoever rejects this teaching is not rejecting a human being, but God, who gives you his Holy Spirit.

⁹There is no need to write you about love for each other. You yourselves have been taught by God how you should love one another.

¹⁰And you have, in fact, behaved like this toward all the believers in all of Macedonia. So we beg you, our friends, to do even more.

¹¹Make it your aim to live a quiet life, to mind your own business, and to earn your own living, just as we told you before.

¹²In this way you will win the respect of those who are not believers, and you will not have to depend on anyone for what you need.

The Lord's Coming

¹³Our friends, we want you to know the truth about those who have died, so that you will not be sad, as are those who have no hope.

¹⁴We believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will take back with Jesus those who have died believing in him.

¹⁵What we are teaching you now is the Lord's teaching: we who are alive on the day the Lord comes will not go ahead of those who have died.

¹⁶There will be the shout of command, the archangel's voice, the sound of God's trumpet, and the Lord himself will come down from heaven. Those who have died believing in Christ will rise to life first;

¹⁷then we who are living at that time will be gathered up along with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will always be with the Lord.

¹⁸So then, encourage one another with these words.

Be Ready for the Lord's Coming

¹There is no need to write you, friends, about the times and occasions when these things will happen.

²For you yourselves know very well that the Day of the Lord will come as a thief comes at night.

³When people say, “Everything is quiet and safe,” then suddenly destruction will hit them! It will come as suddenly as the pains that come upon a woman in labor, and people will not escape.

⁴But you, friends, are not in the darkness, and the Day should not take you by surprise like a thief.

⁵All of you are people who belong to the light, who belong to the day. We do not belong to the night or to the darkness.

⁶So then, we should not be sleeping like the others; we should be awake and sober.

⁷It is at night when people sleep; it is at night when they get drunk.

⁸But we belong to the day, and we should be sober. We must wear faith and love as a breastplate, and our hope of salvation as a helmet.

⁹God did not choose us to suffer his anger, but to possess salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ,

¹⁰who died for us in order that we might live together with him, whether we are alive or dead when he comes.

¹¹And so encourage one another and help one another, just as you are now doing.

Final Instructions and Greetings

¹²We beg you, our friends, to pay proper respect to those who work among you, who guide and instruct you in the Christian life.

¹³Treat them with the greatest respect and love because of the work they do. Be at peace among yourselves.

¹⁴We urge you, our friends, to warn the idle, encourage the timid, help the weak, be patient with everyone.

¹⁵See that no one pays back wrong for wrong, but at all times make it your aim to do good to one another and to all people.

¹⁶Be joyful always,

¹⁷pray at all times,

¹⁸be thankful in all circumstances. This is what God wants from you in your life in union with Christ Jesus.

¹⁹Do not restrain the Holy Spirit;

²⁰do not despise inspired messages.

²¹Put all things to the test: keep what is good

²²and avoid every kind of evil.

²³May the God who gives us peace make you holy in every way and keep your whole being—spirit, soul, and body—free from every fault at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

²⁴He who calls you will do it, because he is faithful.

²⁵Pray also for us, friends.

²⁶Greet all the believers with the kiss of peace.

²⁷I urge you by the authority of the Lord to read this letter to all the believers.

²⁸The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.

¹⁷If you make fun of your father or despise your mother in her old age, you ought to be eaten by vultures or have your eyes picked out by wild ravens.

¹⁸There are four things that are too mysterious for me to understand:

¹⁹an eagle flying in the sky, a snake moving on a rock, a ship finding its way over the sea, and a man and a woman falling in love.