II Rock

[2 Peter]
Cotton Patch Version

II Rock

1.

2.

3.

 

1.

1. From Simon (Rock), a “captive” of Jesus Christ, as well as his agent, to those who, due to the fairness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ, have gotten a faith that’s every bit as good as ours. May you have lots of undeserved favor and peace as you get to know God and our Lord Jesus better.

3. Through his divine power and through the knowledge of him who has invited us because of the goodness of his own heart, he has loaded us up with all we need for the good life. In so doing he has dealt us in on some wonderful offers that are out of this world. By accepting them you may become partners in the divine order and may escape from the awful hellishness which greed generates in the world. On top of this, you should do your dead–level best to put goodness in your faith;

 wisdom in your goodness,
 self–control in your wisdom;
 patience in your self–control,
 godliness in your patience;
 brotherliness in your godliness,
 and love in your brotherliness.

8. Being packed down and running over with these things keeps you from being duds and washouts in the course of the Lordship of Jesus Christ. But the man who hasn’t got them is nearsighted and is going blind; he has become forgetful of his previous cleansing from his sins. So, brothers, concentrate all the more on taking the slack out of your Christian commitment and assignment. By doing so, you won’t ever fall overboard. What’s more, you’ll be guaranteed full admission into the spiritual movement of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

12. Well, I’m going to keep right on nagging you on these matters, even though you are fully aware of them and have been drilled in the essential points. So, as long as I’m in this “house,” I think it is a good idea to keep jogging your memory. I realize that in a little while I’ll be moving out of my “house,” just as our Lord Jesus Christ made clear to me. That’s why I’ll do my best to help you always to have a clear memory of these things even after I’ve checked out. For when we made known to you the power and the presence of our Lord Jesus, we didn’t bait you along with polished sermons; rather, we spoke from firsthand experience of his greatness. For we were there on the holy bill with him when he accepted from Father–God honor and praise, as a voice came to him with surpassing glory. With our own two ears we heard that voice coming in from heaven and saying, “This is my dearly loved Son, of whom I’m real proud.”

19. Also, we put the prophetic word on a more solid footing, and you’ll do yourself a favor by clutching it as though it were a light in a dismal swamp, and hanging on to it until day breaks and “Light–bearer” rises in your hearts.

20. Understand this from the outset: No prophetic writing launches itself[b1] . For prophecy is never produced by human volition; instead, as men get carried away by holy spirit, they speak for God.

 


2.

1. Now just as there were phony preachers among the people then, so will there be phony teachers among you too. They will introduce false teachings that are destructive, while disowning the Owner who paid for them and while consigning themselves to hell in a hurry. And a lot of folks will imitate their immorality and bring disgrace on the true way. They are so greedy they’ll whip up speeches just to get the honorariums from you. These jerks will find that old–time judgment isn’t a thing of the past and that their doom isn’t napping. For if God did not exempt angels when they went astray, but put them in dark hellholes while awaiting trial; and if he didn’t spare the ancient world, but slapped a flood on the whole godless business, sparing only the eight in the ark because Noah was living right; and if God brought catastrophe on Sodom and Gomorrah and made ashes of them as an example of what happens to an irreligious setup; and if he rescued a good man like Lot who was heavily burdened by the filthy and loose behavior about him, whose tender heart was torn day after day by the sight and sound of the immoral acts of people he lived among; then the Lord clearly knows how to get sincere folks out of trying situations, and how on the day of sentencing, to dish out punishment on guilty people, especially on those who, scorning discipline, go trotting after the corrupt cravings of the lower nature. Daring and self–willed, they insult those in high positions without batting an eye. Why, not even angels, though greater in strength and power, would bring such insolent charges against them before the Lord himself.

12. But these jokers are like natural–born dumb animals that are trapped and slaughtered. They poke fun at things they don’t even understand. As they slaughter, so shall they be slaughtered; acting unjustly, they’ll be paid with injustice. Their idea of fun is to have a fling in broad–open daylight. Splotched and deformed, they wallow around while deceitfully taking communion with you. They have eyes that see nothing but sex, that are eternally hungry for the obscene. They seduce the innocent. They are bastards who have a heart exercised in greediness. Having jumped the straight and narrow, they highballed it to hell, taking the same route as the Reverend Balaam Berry, who loved the money he got for doing wrong but was rebuked for his waywardness when a dumb jackass, talking like a man, prevented the preacher from making an ass of himself.

17. These kooks are dry wells, wisps of fog lashed by a hurricane, who have a reservation in the blackness of the nether regions. Running off at the mouth with a lot of poppycock, and with their uncontrolled hankering for sex, they seduce those who are on the verge of breaking away from their false standards. “Let’s be free,” they bark at everyone, while they themselves are slaves of destructive habits. (For to whatever a man sells out, to that is he a slave.)

20. Now, if by an understanding of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, people break away from the pollutions of the old order and then get entangled in them again and sell out, they are worse off at the end than at the beginning. They would have been better off never to have known the right way than to have understood it and then turned their backs on the precious truth delivered to them. This proverb describes them perfectly: “A dog will eat his vomit,” and also, “A washed hog will still wallow in the mud.”

 


3.

1. This makes the second letter, my dear ones, that I have written to you. Each time, by refreshing your memory, I have tried to clarify your mind, to keep before you the previous sermons of the saintly preachers as well as the will of the Lord and Savior as expressed by your missionaries. Keep this uppermost in your minds—that when time begins to run out, impudent mockers who run after nothing but their own interests will come and say to you: “Where is the evidence of his aliveness? For from the beginning of creation right up to the present generation things continue in the same old rut.” But here’s what they purposefully forget: that the heavens existed for ages and then, at God’s command, the earth was formed out of water and divided by water. Again at his command, that world then was flooded and destroyed. All right, the present heavens and earth, by that same command, are being reserved for fire, and kept for the day of trial and sentencing of needless people.

8. So please don’t forget, dear ones, that from God’s viewpoint a single day may be the same as a thousand years, or a thousand years the same as a single day. The Lord just doesn’t present his evidence according to some peoples’ timetable. But he does yearn over you all, not wanting anybody to go to hell, but everybody to enter into a transformed life.

10. Now Lord’s Day will slip up on you like a thief. At that time the skies will disappear with a blast, the basic elements of life will be consumed in the heat, and the entire earth will become uninhabitable. In the light of this total destruction, what kind of persons should you be? Shouldn’t your life together be one of dedication and deep concern as you wait for and encourage the breaking in of God’s day, on which the blazing skies will be smashed and the earth’s structures will melt away in roaring flames. But, on the basis of his assurance, we live in anticipation of “a new heaven and a new earth, in which justice makes its home.”

14. So then, dear ones, as you anticipate these things, do your darnedest to be clean and straight and to be found in peace with Him. Consider our Lord’s perseverance in salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul wrote to you with the insight that had been granted to him. Notice how he mentioned these things in every one of his letters. To be sure, some of the things he said are really hard to understand, and people who are unlearned and flighty twist them out of shape, just as they do the other writings, to their own destruction.

17. So now that you’ve been given advance notice, my loved ones, really be careful not to be taken for a ride or knocked off your balance by the slick tricks of smooth operators. Rather, keep on growing in the undeserved favor and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the credit both now and on the day of eternity!


Love,
Rock


 [b1]Or, arises under its own impetus