Against scoffers denying the second coming of Christ. He declares the
sudden dissolution of this world and exhorts to holiness of life.
3:1. Behold this second epistle I write to you, my dearly beloved, in
which, I stir up by way of admonition your sincere mind:
3:2. That you may be mindful of those words which I told you before
from the holy prophet and of your apostles, of the precepts of the Lord
and Saviour.
3:3. Knowing this first: That in the last days there shall come
deceitful scoffers, walking after their own lusts,
3:4. Saying: Where is his promise or his coming? For since the time
that the fathers slept, all things continue as they were from the
beginning of the creation.
3:5. For this they are wilfully ignorant of: That the heavens were
before, and the earth out of water and through water, consisting by the
word of God:
3:6. Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water,
perished.
3:7. But the heavens and the earth which are now, by the same word are
kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and
perdition of the ungodly men.
3:8. But of this one thing be not ignorant, my beloved, that one day
with the Lord is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.
3:9. The Lord delayeth not his promise, as some imagine, but dealeth
patiently for your sake, not willing that any should perish, but that
all should return to penance,
3:10. But the day of the Lord shall come as a thief, in which the
heavens shall pass away with great violence and the elements shall be
melted with heat and the earth and the works which are in it shall be
burnt up.
3:11. Seeing then that all these things are to be dissolved, what
manner of people ought you to be in holy conversation and godliness?
3:12. Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of the Lord,
by which the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements
shall melt with the burning heat?
3:13. But we look for new heavens and a new earth according to his
promises, in which justice dwelleth.
3:14. Wherefore, dearly beloved, waiting for these things, be diligent
that you may be found before him unspotted and blameless in peace.
3:15. And account the longsuffering of our Lord, salvation: as also our
most dear brother Paul, according to the wisdom given him, hath written
to you:
3:16. As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in
which are certain things hard to be understood, which the unlearned and
unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, to their own
destruction.
3:17. You therefore, brethren, knowing these things before, take heed,
lest being led aside by the error of the unwise, you fall from your own
steadfastness.
3:18. But grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour
Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and unto the day of eternity,
Amen.