Chapter 1

Simon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who share with us the common privilege of faith, justified as we are by our God and Saviour Jesus Christ;

Grace and peace be yours abundantly, as you gain fuller knowledge of God, and of Christ Jesus our Lord.

See how all the gifts that make for life and holiness in us belong to his divine power; come to us through fuller knowledge of him, whose own glory and sovereignty have drawn us to himself!

Through him3 God has bestowed on us high and treasured promises; you are to share the divine nature, with the world’s corruption, the world’s passions, left behind.

And you too have to contribute every effort on your own part, crowning your faith with virtue, and virtue with enlightenment,

and enlightenment with continence, and continence with endurance, and endurance with holiness,

and holiness with brotherly love, and brotherly love with charity.

Such gifts, when they are yours in full measure, will make you quick and successful pupils, reaching ever closer knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ;

he who lacks them is no better than a blind man feeling his way about; his old sins have been purged away, and he has forgotten it.

Bestir yourselves then, brethren, ever more eagerly, to ratify God’s calling and choice of you by a life well lived; if you do this, you will make no false step,

and it will be no grudging entrance that is afforded to you into the kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

I shall never fail, then, to go on reminding you of this, although you know it well, and are firmly grounded in a truth that is present to your minds.

I hold it my duty to keep the memory awake in you, while I am still in this brief dwelling-place;

I am assured, by what our Lord Jesus Christ has made known to me, that I must fold my tent before long.

And I will see to it that, when I am gone, you shall always be able to remember what I have been saying.

We were not crediting fables of man’s invention, when we preached to you about the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, and about his coming; we had been eye-witnesses of his exaltation.

Such honour, such glory was bestowed on him by God the Father, that a voice came to him out of the splendour which dazzles human eyes; This, it said, is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; to him, then, listen.

We, his companions on the holy mountain, heard that voice coming from heaven,

and now the word of the prophets gives us more confidence than ever.6 It is with good reason that you are paying so much attention to that word; it will go on shining, like a lamp in some darkened room, until the dawn breaks, and the day-star rises in your hearts.

Yet always you must remember this, that no prophecy in scripture is the subject of private interpretation.

It was never man’s impulse, after all, that gave us prophecy; men gave it utterance, but they were men whom God had sanctified, carried away, as they spoke, by the Holy Spirit.