2 Petrus 3:1

The False Teachers’ Denial of the Lord’s Return

3:1 Dear friends, this is already the second letter I have written ¹  you, in which ²  I am trying to stir up ³  your pure mind by way of reminder:

2 Petrus 3:12

3:12 while waiting for and hastening ⁴  the coming of the day of God? ⁵  Because of this day, ⁶  the heavens will be burned up and ⁷  dissolve, and the celestial bodies ⁸  will melt away in a blaze! ⁹ 

[3:1]  ¹ tn Grk “I am already writing this [as] a second letter.” The object-complement construction is more smoothly rendered in English a bit differently. Further, although the present tense γράφω (grafw) is used here, English convention employs an epistolary past tense. (The Greek epistolary aorist might have been expected here, but it also occurs in situations unlike its English counterparts.)

[3:1]  ² tn The relative pronoun is plural, indicating that the following statement is true about both letters.

[3:1]  ³ tn Or “I have stirred up, aroused.” The translation treats the present tense verb as a conative present.

[3:12]  ⁴ tn Or possibly, “striving for,” but the meaning “hasten” for σπουδάζω (spoudazw) is normative in Jewish apocalyptic literature (in which the coming of the Messiah/the end is anticipated). Such a hastening is not an arm-twisting of the divine volition, but a response by believers that has been decreed by God.

[3:12]  ⁵ sn The coming of the day of God. Peter elsewhere describes the coming or parousia as the coming of Christ (cf. 2 Pet 1:16; 3:4). The almost casual exchange between “God” and “Christ” in this little book, and elsewhere in the NT, argues strongly for the deity of Christ (see esp. 1:1).

[3:12]  ⁶ tn Grk “on account of which” (a subordinate relative clause in Greek).

[3:12]  ⁷ tn Grk “being burned up, will dissolve.”

[3:12]  ⁸ tn See note in v. 10 on “celestial bodies.”

[3:12]  ⁹ tn Grk “being burned up” (see v. 10).