1. Greetings from Simon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ. To all of you who share in the same valuable faith that we have. This faith was given to us because our God and Savior Jesus Christ always does what is good and right.
2. Grace and peace be given to you more and more, because now you know God and Jesus our Lord.
3. Jesus has the power of God. And his power has given us everything we need to live a life devoted to God. We have these things because we know him. Jesus chose us by his glory and goodness,
4. through which he also gave us the very great and rich gifts that he promised us. With these gifts you can share in being like God. And so you will escape the ruin that comes to people in the world because of the evil things they want.
5. Because you have these blessings, do all you can to add to your life these things: to your faith add goodness; to your goodness add knowledge;
6. to your knowledge add self-control; to your self-control add patience; to your patience add devotion to God;
7. to your devotion add kindness toward your brothers and sisters in Christ, and to this kindness add love.
8. If all these things are in you and growing, you will never fail to be useful to God. You will produce the kind of fruit that should come from your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.