2 Peter 3

Riverside^{(i) 1} THIS second letter, beloved, I am writing you. In both I have tried, by awakening your memory, ² to arouse your honest minds to recall the predictions of the holy prophets and the commands of your apostles from the Lord and Savior. ³ First you should know this, that in the last days scoffers will come with their scoffing, living according to their own passions ⁴ and saying, "Where is his promised coming? for since the fathers fell asleep all things remain as they have been since the beginning of the creation?" ⁵ For they willfully forget that there were heavens of old and an earth formed out of water and through water by God's word. ⁶ By these means the world that then was was flooded with water and destroyed. ⁷ But the present heavens and the earth are by the same word treasured up and kept for fire on the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men. ⁸ Do not forget this one thing, beloved, that one day with the Lord is like a thousand years and a thousand years are like one day. ⁹ The Lord is not slow about what he has promised, as some think of slowness, but is long-suffering toward us, wishing not to have any perish but to have all come to a change of heart. ¹⁰ But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. On that day the heavens will pass away with a loud noise and the burning elements will be dissolved and the earth and the things in it will not be found. ¹¹ Since all of these things are to be dissolved, what sort of persons ought you to be in holy lives and piety, ¹² you who are looking for and hastening toward the coming of the day of God, when the blazing heavens will be dissolved and the burning elements melted? ¹³ But according to his promise we are expecting new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness will dwell. ¹⁴ Therefore, beloved, since you expect this, endeavor earnestly to be found by him in peace, spotless and faultless, ¹⁵ and regard the long-suffering of our Lord as salvation, as also our beloved brother Paul has written to you, according to the wisdom given to him. ¹⁶ So he writes in all his letters when speaking in them of these things. In those letters are some things hard to understand, and these the unlearned and unsteady twist, as they do the rest of the Scriptures, to their own ruin. ¹⁷ You, then, beloved, since you know these things beforehand, be on your guard not to be led away by the error of the lawless and fall from your own steadfastness, ¹⁸ but grow in grace and in knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be glory now and to the day of eternity!