The 2nd letter that Peter wrote
(The book in the Holy Bible called 2 Peter)
About this letter
Peter was one of Jesus’s 12 special workers. He went everywhere with Jesus and knew him well.
Peter wrote 2 letters that are now in the Holy Bible. This is the 2nd letter. He wrote it about 2,000 years ago, about 30 years after Jesus went back to heaven.
In this letter Peter told Christians how to become strong for Jesus. And he told them about people that reckon they were saying God’s words, but they were lying. And he wrote about what it will be like in the last days of this world, before God finishes it up.
These words that Peter wrote have very important messages for all of us Christians.
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1 I am Peter, and this letter is from me. My other name is Simon. I work for Jesus Christ. I am one of his special workers.
You people believe in Jesus Christ, just like I do, so I’m writing this letter to you. Jesus helps us trust him, and that is really special for us. Jesus Christ is God, and he saves us. He is always right, and he is always fair.
2 You already know God, and our leader Jesus, so I pray that you will know them better every day. And I’m asking God to be properly good to you, and to make you really happy and quiet inside yourselves.
God helps us live the right way
3 You know, God is really powerful. He is very great, and very good too. He picked us out to be his own people, so we can get to know him properly. And he gives us everything we need to live the right way.
4 And he promised us some very important things, and they are very special to us. He promised that we can think the way he thinks, so that we become really good people. He says that we can get away from bad things. We are not like the people that belong to this world. They want to do bad things, then they go and do those bad things, and they become bad people. But God says that we can get away from all that.
5 So think about what I am saying, and you will know that you have to be as good as you can. You believe in Christ, and you have to keep trying to live his way all the time. This is what you have to do,
– you always have to try to do what is right, and you have to try to know God better,
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6-7 and you have to learn to control yourselves too,
– and you have to learn to keep going strong, no matter what happens,
– and you have to be good to each other too, so that you will make God happy,
– and you have to love other Christians like they are your own brothers and sisters, and you have to love everybody else too.
8 If you keep on living like that more and more, you will get to know our leader, Jesus Christ, better and better. And you will be a good worker that does a good job for him every time.
9 But if you don’t live like that, it shows that you don’t understand God’s message properly. You are like blind people that can’t see anything properly. It’s like you forget about what God did for you. You used to do wrong things before, but God made you free from all that, and he made you clean inside yourselves. So don’t forget that. Don’t do wrong things again.
10 My Christian friends, try hard to do all those good things. God picked you to be his own people, and whenever you do those good things, you show everybody that you really are God’s people. If you do those things, you will never turn away from God.
11 Then God will be very happy with you, and he will make sure you live with him for ever. You will be in Jesus Christ’s family. He is our leader, and he saves us.
Don’t forget this message
12 I will keep on telling you about these things, even though you already know them, and you know that they are true. I will keep on telling you about them anyway.
13 I reckon it’s good for me to remind you about these things, and I will keep on doing it while I’m still alive in this body, so that you will keep on thinking about these things and you will not forget them.
14 Our leader, Jesus Christ, told me that soon I will die. He will take me out of this body.
15 But while I’m still alive in this body, I will do everything I can to keep on telling you these things, so that after I die, you will always remember them.
Peter saw that Jesus Christ is really great
16 Remember the story we told you about our leader, Jesus Christ. That was the true story. We didn’t make up smart stories to tell you. We told you that Jesus is powerful, and that he will come back here to this earth again. We saw for ourselves that Jesus is very great, and we told you everything we saw.
17-18 It happened like this. Me and 2 other followers of Jesus, we went with him up on to a special mountain, and God the father, he showed us that Jesus is very great and powerful. God told us this, he said, “This is my son. I love him very much, and I’m very happy with him.” Yes, we ourselves heard the voice of our great God. He talked to us from heaven, and he told us that message.
The messages in God’s book are true
19 So now we can be really sure about the messages that are in God’s book. We can be sure that they are true. A long time ago, God told his men to write those words in his book. You have to think carefully about those messages. They can help us understand the true story about God, like a light helps us see things in the night. Those messages will keep on helping you until Jesus comes back and he helps you know God properly. Then it will be like Jesus is a really bright light that shows us everything clearly, like the really bright star that shines in the morning, and then the sun comes up.
20 You see, those men that wrote those words a long time ago, they didn’t think up their own stories.
21 No. They didn’t write down their own ideas. The Holy Spirit worked inside them and told them God’s messages. Those words came from God, and they wrote them down in his book.