II PETER CHAPTER 1 - 3

2 PETER 1

1 Simon Peter, a servant and
Apostle of Jesus Christ's band,
To those who have obtained the like
Precious faith with us through the spike
Of righteousness of God and of
Our Saviour Jesus Christ above,
2 Grace and peace multiplied to you
Through knowledge of God come in view
And of Jesus our Lord adored,
3 According as his divine sword
Has given us all things that pertain
To life and godliness not vain,
Through knowledge of him who's called us
To glory and to virtue's truss;
4 Whereby are given unto us
Exceeding great, very precious
Promises: that by these you might
Partake of divine nature's right,
Having escaped corruption in
The world through lust borne out in sin.

Partakers of nature divine, this verse
Has led me through the darkness and the curse
Of doctrines and of practices diverse
To know the secret of the universe,
That You, Beloved, look from each human face,
And all men are the subjects of Your grace.
Some are the fleeting falling stars that trace
The beauty of the night sky as they fall
Into the fires of hell's extinguished call.
Some are the growing lamps that bloom the more
As time goes on from fretting room to door
To rise into celestial clime and hall.
But the nature divine is given to all
Upon the face of earth, in every stall.

5 Beside this giving diligence,
Add to your faith virtue in sense,
And to virtue knowledge of true,
6 And to knowledge temperance on cue;
And to temperance some patience too,
And to patience godliness 7 and
To godliness, brotherly band,
And to brotherly kindness add
Charity. 8 For if these you've had,
And they abound, they make you not
Barren or unfruitful in plot
Of Lord Jesus Christ's knowledge sought.
9 But one who lacks these things is blind,
And cannot see far off in kind,
And has forgotten he was purged
From his old sins as he was urged.
10 So instead, brothers, give good heed
To make your calling sure indeed
And your election done with speak:
For if you do these things, you'll not
Fail from the goal you sought.

The list of things to do is overwhelming
To anyone who tries them at the helming.
The only way to engage the whole ladder
Of Peter is a better way, not sadder,
Which is relying on the calling given
By You, Beloved, rather than what's been striven.
Sure calling leads to done election too.
And so I climb the ladder up to You,
And find You did the climbing on the way.
I only thought I chose the better pay.
Yet there is truth in that the ladder's sound
Is where all human freedom may be found.
All is determined by biology:
Only Your call, Beloved, makes some men free.

11 For so an entrance shall be served
To you abundantly unswerved
Into eternal kingdom of
Lord Saviour Jesus Christ above.
12 So I will not be negligent
To put you always in mind bent
To these things, though you know them well,
And be established in the gel
Of present truth. 13 Yes, I think meant
As long as I am in this tent,
To stir you up by putting you
In that remembrance of the due;
14 Knowing that soon I must release
This my tent, even without cease
Our Lord Jesus Christ puts in my view.

I rush into eternal kingdom of
The son of David, the man that I love,
And find the present truth forever shown
Upon the screen of Your creation known.
I put in mind the Psalms and keep their share
In my remembrance, constant dhikr bear
Across the dergah floor, the slaughter ground
Where my will's crucified until is found
Your will alone, Beloved, within the tent.
When fleshly tabernacle's struck and rent,
My breath shall fly to You until the day
Of resurrection by grace without pay.
I love the son of David while I'm here,
I'll love him but the more when he'll appear.

15 So I'll endeavour that you may
Be able after the dismay
Of my decease to have these things
Always in mind's rememberings.
16 For we've not followed cunningly
Devised fables in making see
The power and coming of our Lord
Jesus Christ, but eye-witness scored
Of his being of majesty.
17 For he received from God the Father
Honour and glory, without bother,
When there came such a voice to him
From the cloud of glory not dim,
This is My beloved Son, in whom
I am well pleased from dawn till doom.
18 And this voice which came from the sky
We heard, and when we were there by
Him in the holy mount up high.

The vision of Your glory falling on
The Christ and Moses and Elijah's drawn
In sweet remembrance by good Peter's pen.
I wish he'd taken a good look again
To say if Moses was not really that
Enoch who disappeared to where You sat.
The Gospel gives the names no doubt based at
Assumption of Moses, tractate not flat.
Beloved, I should have though Enoch would come.
I'll hold my doubts and have faith in the sum
Of Peter's reckoning. At least he's sure
That Jesus joined the two, and not figure
Of some man unknown to witnesses three.
I'll follow still vision's eternity.

19 We've also got a more sure word
Of prophecy good to have heard,
As to a light that shines in dark,
Until the day dawn with a spark,
And day star rise in your heart's host.
20 Know first, that no prophecy of
The Scripture is of private love
And private interpretation.
21 For prophecy did not come won
In old times by the will of man:
But holy men of God spoke plan
As they were moved by Holy Ghost.

Interpretation of the Word of God
Has been a private thing upon the sod
Since before Protestants rose against Rome
And thought they had monopoly on home.
It led to Zwickaw prophets in address
And all the Protestant confusion's mess.
The private spirit raises head among
The eastern churches too and gives new tongue
To utterances old as well as young.
Beloved, I seek the knowledge of Your Word
That is the true and not from my heart spurred,
The revelation of those holy men
Who spoke moved by the Holy Ghost again,
Neither by the established nor the wen.

2 PETER 2

1 But there were false prophets also
Among the people long ago,
As there shall be false teachers come
Among you, who privately hum
Damned heresies, and still deny
The Lord that bought them from the dry,
And so bring on themselves to fall
A swift destruction at the wall.
2 And many shall follow their own
Pernicious ways, and by their loan
The way of truth shall come to be
Evil spoken of in the spree.

The Lord's denied in Holy Trinity
As well as in the Arian sort of spree.
Pernicious ways are found in those who think
To change both times and laws and at a blink
Reject Your Sabbath day come every week
Before the pagan's rise and in prayer seek
The sun on Sunday's orgies of the meek
And bold followers of Mithra in claw.
Beloved, instead I shall cling to Your law.
The swift destruction that I see around
On every sort of government and ground
Is the effect of worshiping the round
Of idols and of setting off the day
Of sovereignty You bear in shining ray.

3 And through covetousness shall they
With feigned words make merchandise sway
Of you. Their judgement a long time
Now does not linger, for their crime
Their damning does not sleep but climb.
4 For if God did not spare the true
Angels that sinned, but cast into
Hell, and delivered them in chains
Of darkness, reserved for their pains;
5 And did not spare the old world, but
Saved Noah the eighth person shut,
A preacher of good righteousness,
Bringing in the flood on the world
Of the ungodly and unfurled;
6 And turning cities of Sodom
And Gomorrah into ash dumb
Condemned them with an overthrow,
Making them examples to go,
To those after to live bad row;
7 And saved just Lot, vexed with the foul
Behaviour of the wicked cowl:
8 For that righteous man lived with them,
In seeing and hearing condemn,
Vexing his righteous soul each day
With their unlawful deeds in sway;
9 The Lord knows how to save the good
Out of temptations of the hood,
And to reserve the unjust to
The day of judgement for his due:
10 But mostly those that walk in flesh
In the rest of uncleanness' mesh,
And despise discipline to do.
They are presumptuous and self-willed,
They're not afraid to speak fulfilled
Evil of dignities as swilled.

Again Apostle Peter quotes the word
Of Enoch on the watchers who in herd
Are chained in hell awaiting judgement stirred.
They are set apart not to make their work
Of ravage on the DNA and shirk
Their duties to protect the glowing earth,
But their acts followed on in the same worth
In Sodom and Gomorrah, in the way
Of heathendom in every age's sway.
Beloved I lay aside both my self-will
And my presumption and its speaking still
And answer the call to election sure
To enter with the holy and the pure.
I see before me glowing Sion's hill.

11 Whereas the angels, greater in
Their power and might, do not bring din
Of railing accusation on
Them before the Lord of the dawn.
12 But these, as natural brute beasts seen,
Made to be taken from between
And led to their destruction, speak
Evil of the things they are weak
To understand; so utterly
Must perish in corruption's sea;
13 And shall receive the punishment
Of their unrighteousness as meant
Since the take pleasure in the day
To riot in their wilful way.
Spots and such blemishes, they sport
Themselves with their deceiving's fort
While they feast with you and cavort.

Beloved, I'm too intrepid, that is true.
I ought to follow angels in their view
Of bringing no speech railing on the pew
Of the apostate watchers and their crew.
Beloved, my mouth is covered at the sight,
Although there is no certainty of right
But that I may shout at the poor in plight
And cry aloud to find the recondite.
Beloved, the fact is I am blind and see
Not what the angels in their company
Inspect with burning hearts and silent tongue.
Fact is I am no prophet and too young.
Hold to my tongue the coal Isaiah felt
Or give me Moses' speech to change in welt.

14 Their eye full of adultery,
That cannot cease from sin to be
Beguiling some unstable souls:
A heart they've exercised with coals
Of covetousness, cursed the foals:
15 They do forsake the righteous way,
And all of them have gone astray,
And followed in the wicked way
Of Balaam Bosor's son, who loved
Wages of unrighteousness gloved,
16 But was rebuked for wickedness:
The dumb ass speaking with man's voice
Forbade the prophet's maddened choice.
17 These are wells without water, clouds,
That are carried with tempest shrouds,
To whom the mist of darkness stays
Reserved forever in their ways.
18 For when they speak great swelling words
Of vanity, they come in herds
Alluring through the lusts of flesh,
Through wantonness, those who afresh
Were clean escaped from those who live
In error shaking like a sieve.
19 While they promise them liberty,
They themselves are the servants free
Of their corruption in the spree:
For of whom a man's overcome,
Of the same falls in bondage dumb.
20 For it after they have escaped
Pollutions of the world uncaped
Through knowledge of the Lord and Saviour
Jesus Christ, they come to behaviour
Once more entangled, overcome,
The latter end worse than in sum
The start was when they were a bum.
21 For it had been better for them
Not to have known the way of gem
In righteousness, than, after they
Have know it, to turn from the sway
Of the holy commandment's way
Deliver to them on that day.
22 But it has happened on their score
According to the proverb's store,
The dog's turned to his vomit's stench,
The sow that was washed by the wench
To wallow in the mire the more.

Those who have kept Your Sabbath every week
As the week circle on the world they speak,
Only to change the divine worship's store
To follow sun and moon upon the floor
Are those who slip in empty clouds and go
Down to perdition, yea, they go not slow.
They follow filthy lucre at the call
Of Balaam, but receive naught but the pall
Of tyranny and poverty at last.
Beloved, enlighten them or leave outcast.
Let me never forsake the righteous way
That You have shown in Decalogue in sway
To lead me to a lighter, brighter day
By Your Word shining with a better ray.

2 PETER 3

1 This second letter, now, beloved,
I write to you, with hand ungloved,
To stir your pure minds by the way
Of some remembrance come to stay:
2 That you be mindful of the words
Which were spoken before the herds
By holy prophets, and commands
Of us apostles in our bands
Of the Lord and Saviour of lands.
3 Knowing this first, that there shall come
In the last days scoffer and bum,
Walking after their own lusts too,
4 And saying “Where is promise true
Of his appearing? For since time
Ancestors fell asleep for crime,
All things continue as they were
From creation’s beginning stir.”
5 For this they willingly forget
That by the word of God well met
The heavens were of old and earth
Stood out of the waters for worth:
6 Whereby the world that then was made,
Being overflowed by unstayed
Water, perished in the parade.
7 But heavens and earth, the which are now,
By the same word are kept somehow
In store, reserved for fire to come
On day of judgement and to hum
Perdition on ungodly bum.
8 But my beloved, do not be dumb
And ignorant of this one thing,
That one day is with the Lord come
As a thousand of years in ring,
And a thousand years as one day.

The expectation of coming of lord
And fire upon the earth of the adored
Is central to the doctrine and the word
Preached by apostles to the faithful herd.
I come each Sabbath eve to find Your throne
Set up against the sky and on earth's groan,
That waits the sight of consummation's own,
And know that one day all things shall be flown.
There is no peace of empires waiting near,
There's only suspension before the fear,
And lulling to a sleep forgetting tear.
I work as though I had a thousand years
And pray as though the grinding of my gears
Was on their last day ever to be shown.

9 The Lord's not slack in promise ray,
As some count slackness as they stray;
But is longsuffering to us here,
Not willing that any for fear
Should perish, but that all should come
Back to repentance, every bum.
10 But the day of the Lord will come
As a thief in the night, and then
The heavens shall pass away from men
With a great noise, and elements
Shall melt with fervent heat, condense
The earth also and the works to
That are in it burned up in view.
11 Then all these things shall be dissolved,
So what manner of men resolved
Ought you to be in what you do
In holy and in godly crew?
12 Look for and haste the coming day
Of God, wherein the heavens in sway
Being on fire shall be dissolved,
And elements melt as revolved
In fervent heat in burning ray.
13 So we according to his promise,
Look for new heavens, no doubting Thomas,
And a new earth, in which shall dwell
The righteousness of all things well.

The advent hope is burning in my breast,
The seed placed their by ancestors at rest,
And nurtured by the angels of Your song,
Elected by eternal plan along
The margins of celestial war and wrong.
I tremble with anticipation here
To see the melting elements appear
And fervent heat burn all the dross away.
I rest and work in hope of coming day.
Beloved, let the millennia pass by,
The generations rising on the sly,
But as they pass, keep me within Your care,
As I hope in the message that You bare
To heaven and earth and star and everywhere.

14 So now, beloved, seeing that you
Look for such things, beware in pew
That you may be found here in peace
By him, no spot, no blame in crease.
15 Consider patience of our Lord
Is our salvation, as adored
Our brother dear, Paul, in accord
Of wisdom given to him did write
To you; 16 as also in all he
Wrote in his letters spoken free
Of these things, in which some things are
Hard to be understood by far,
Which the unlearned, unstable wrest,
As they do also Scriptures' best,
Unto their own destruction's quest.
17 So you, beloved, seeing you know
These things before, beware also,
Lest you be led astray and go
With error of the wicked row,
Fall from your own steadfastness' show.
18 But grow in grace and knowledge of
Our Lord Saviour Jesus Christ's love.
To him be glory now again
Forever and ever. Amen.

Paul's writings are still wrested by the ones
You've not elected to faith and their sons.
I mourn the marble chips upon the floor
Of Your workshop, Beloved, and see the door
Closed on the beautiful and on the rich,
On those who rule the boost and hit the pitch.
I see their glory tumbled in the ditch.
Both Peter and Paul write to fire the faith
Of faithful and to turn to writhing wraith
The empires of the earth. They dare to speak,
And yet they find the stubble burns the peak.
Beloved, I still submit my gloried crown
To the impostors who walk on the town,
But know my lord's arisen from the frown.

AUTHOR: THOMAS G. MCELWAIN

Copyright © 2007 Adams & McElwain Publishers and Thomas McElwain First Published in two volumes, The Beloved and I 2005, and Led of the Beloved, 2006. Second Edition, 2010 Third and revised edition, 2012 All rights reserved. No part of this verse commentary on the sacred Scriptures may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in a retrieval system, in any form or by any means, without permission in writing from publisher.

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