Study Desk

Above all, keep fervent in your love for one another, because love covers a multitude of sins.

Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal among you, which comes upon you for your testing, as though something strange were happening to you;

If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory, and of God, rests upon you.

For it is time for judgment to begin with the household of God; and if it begins with us first, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God?

After you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself perfect, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.

Through Silvanus, our faithful brother (for so I regard him), I have written to you briefly, exhorting and testifying that this is the true grace of God. Stand firm in it!

for His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence.

Now for this very reason also, applying all diligence, in your faith supply moral excellence, and in your moral excellence, knowledge,

For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they do not make you useless nor unproductive in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

For the one who lacks these qualities is blind or short-sighted, having forgotten his purification from his former sins.

Therefore, brothers and sisters, be all the more diligent to make certain about His calling and choice of you; for as long as you practice these things, you will never stumble;

for in this way the entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be abundantly supplied to you.

For we did not follow cleverly devised tales when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of His majesty.

For when He received honor and glory from God the Father, such a declaration as this was made to Him by the Majestic Glory: "This is My beloved Son with whom I am well pleased"—

for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.

For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to pits of darkness, held for judgment;

and if He condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to destruction by reducing them to ashes, having made them an example of what is coming for the ungodly;

(for by what he saw and heard that righteous man, while living among them, felt his righteous soul tormented day after day by their lawless deeds),

then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from a trial, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment,

but he received a rebuke for his own offense, for a mute donkey, speaking with a human voice, restrained the insanity of the prophet.