2 Peter 3

In this “second letter,” Peter stirs up their “sincere mind” by reminding them of the prophets and apostles. Scoffers will come “in the last days,” following their own sinful desires and saying, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were.” But they deliberately overlook that God created the world by His word and once judged it by the flood, and that “the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment.” As for the delay: “with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.” Yet “the day of the Lord will come like a thief,” when the heavens will pass away and the elements be dissolved. Since all this is so, “what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness,” waiting for and hastening “the day of God,” and looking forward “according to his promise” to “new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.” Therefore, be diligent to be found “without spot or blemish, and at peace,” count “the patience of our Lord as salvation,” as Paul also wrote (whose letters Peter ranks with “the other Scriptures”), and “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”