2 Peter 1

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¹I am Peter, and this letter is from me. My other name is Simon. I work for Jesus Christ, and he sent me to tell people his message. 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.

²You 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 really good to you, and to make you happy and quiet inside yourselves.

³You know, God is really powerful. And God is very great and very good too. He picked us out to be his own people, so we can get to know him properly. After that he gives us everything we need to live the right way.

⁴And he promised us some very important things. He promised that we can be the same kind of people that he is, really good people. He says that we can stop ourselves from thinking about doing bad things. We are not like the people that belong to this world. They want to do bad things, then they get up and do those bad things, and those bad things spoil them. But God says that we can get away from all that. Isn’t this great? He promised us this, and it is really dear to us.

⁵So think about this and you will know that you have to be as good as you can. You believe in Christ all right, but you have to keep trying to get better and better all the time. You always have to try to do whatever is right, and you have to try to know God better,

⁶and you have to try to control yourselves properly 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.

⁸If you keep on getting better and better like this 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.

⁹But some people don’t do this. They don’t think that it is important. They are like blind people that can’t see anything properly. They forget about what God did for them. They used to do wrong things before, but God made them free from all that, and he made them clean inside themselves. But they forget all about that.

¹⁰So, my friends, try hard to do all these good things. God picked you to be his own people, and whenever you do these good things you show everybody that you really are God’s people. If you do these things, you will never turn away from God,

¹¹Then God will be very happy with you and he will bring you into Jesus Christ’s family, and you will live with him for ever. He is the one that saves us.

¹²I will keep on telling you about these things even though you already know them and you know that they are true. But I will keep telling you about them anyway.

¹³I reckon it’s right for me to remind you about these things, and I will keep doing it while I’m still alive in this body so that you will keep thinking about these things and you will not forget them.

¹⁴Our leader, Jesus Christ, told me that soon I will die. He will take me out of this body.

¹⁵But while I’m still alive in this body I will do everything I can to keep telling you these things so that after I die you will always remember them.

¹⁶You remember that we told you about our leader, Jesus Christ. That was a true story. We didn’t make up smart stories to tell you. We told you that Jesus is powerful, and 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.

¹⁷We went with Jesus up on to that special mountain, and God, the Father, showed us that Jesus is very great and powerful. God told us this, he said, “This is my son. I love him very much. He makes me very happy.” And we ourselves heard God’s wonderful voice. He talked from heaven and told us that message.

¹⁹So now we can be really sure about those messages in God’s book. We can be sure 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 are like a light shining in the night. Think about them and God will help you understand them, just like a light helps you see things in the night. And those words will keep on shining for you till daylight starts to come, and Jesus comes, just like the morning star.

²⁰You see, those men that wrote those words a long time ago, they didn’t think up their own stories or

²¹write down their own ideas. No. 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.