2 Peter 3

1 This is now the second letter I am writing to you, beloved, and in both of them I am stirring up your sincere mind by a reminder, [a] 2 to remember the words spoken beforehand by the holy prophets, and the command of the Lord and the one who rescues given through your apostles — [b] 3 knowing this first: that in the last days mockers will come with mocking, going according to their own desires 4 and saying, [c]

“Where is the promise of his coming? For from the day the fathers fell asleep, everything stays just as it was from the beginning of creation.”

5 For it escapes them, because they want it to, that heavens existed long ago, and an earth standing out of water and through water by the word of God, 6 through which the world of that time was flooded with water and perished. [d] 7 But the present heavens and the earth, by the same word, have been stored up for fire, kept for a day of judgment and of the destruction of ungodly people.

8 But do not let this one thing escape you, beloved: that one day with the Lord is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day. [e] † † 9 The Lord is not slow about the promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wanting any to perish but all to come to a change of mind. [f] 10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the elements will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works in it will be found. [g]

11 Since all these things are being dissolved in this way, what sort of people must you be, in holy ways of life and acts of devoutness, 12 expecting and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens, set on fire, will be dissolved, and the elements, burning, are melting. [h] 13 But according to his promise we expect new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness lives. [i]

14 So then, beloved, expecting these things, be diligent to be found by him without spot and without blemish, in peace, [j] 15 and count the patience of our Lord as rescue — just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you, according to the wisdom given to him, 16 as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them about these things. In them there are some things hard to understand, which the unlearned and unsteady twist, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction. [k]

17 You then, beloved, knowing this beforehand, guard yourselves, so that you are not carried off with the error of the lawless and fall from your own steadiness; 18 but grow in favor and in the knowledge of our Lord and the one who rescues, Jesus Christ. To him is the glory both now and to the day of the age. Amen. [l]