The phrase κατάρας τέκνα, literally “children of a curse,” is a judicial designation: the false teachers belong to the sphere of divine malediction and stand marked out for its execution. τέκνα is nominative neuter plural, breaking the preceding chain of participial descriptions with an appositional verdict. Peter does not merely add another vice to their portrait; having described their predatory sensuality, their exploitation of unstable persons, and their habituated greed, he identifies their covenantal and eschatological standing before God. The genitive κατάρας, “of curse,” is best understood as a genitive of quality or destiny, comparable to biblical descriptions such as “sons of disobedience.” It does not mean that they utter curses, nor does it require that some human being has placed a curse upon them. Their conduct renders visible their character as persons under God’s curse. The expression draws upon the Old Testament covenantal contrast between blessing and curse, in which rebellion against God brings his judicial sentence. This accords with the surrounding context: their condemnation has not been idle (2:3), God knows how to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment (2:9), and their end is destruction (2:12). The plural English rendering “children of curses” can suggest multiple curses, but κατάρας is singular. “Accursed children” communicates the sense idiomatically, though it can obscure Peter’s vivid familial metaphor. The designation also contributes to the contrast with genuine believers, who are called according to God’s blessing and are to confirm their calling and election (1:10). These teachers claim Christian liberty and spiritual knowledge, yet their settled moral pattern demonstrates that they stand under the opposite divine verdict.

The close correspondence with Jude 12–13 places 2 Peter 2:17 within a shared polemical description of false teachers, though 2 Peter presents the imagery in a distinct form. Both passages call the seducers “waterless” and assign them to the darkness of judgment; both also employ language of being swept along by destructive weather. Jude has “waterless clouds” (νεφέλαι ἄνυδροι) carried away by winds, whereas 2 Peter speaks of “waterless springs” (πηγαὶ ἄνυδροι) and “mists” (ὁμίχλαι) driven by a storm (ὑπὸ λαίλαπος ἐλαυνόμεναι). The verbal and conceptual agreements are too extensive to be accidental. Whether 2 Peter directly adapts Jude or both authors draw upon a common prophetic and Jewish apocalyptic tradition cannot be demonstrated from this verse alone, but 2 Peter’s wording is an intentional appropriation rather than a mere repetition. The change from clouds to mists sharpens the accusation in a way suited to the immediate context. A spring promises refreshment, yet these springs are dry; the teachers advertise freedom and knowledge, yet provide none of the life-giving reality they claim to dispense (2 Pet 2:18–19). The mists, moreover, are insubstantial and storm-driven. The present passive participle ἐλαυνόμεναι (from elaunō), “being driven,” depicts forces without stability or direction, swept before the λαῖλαψ, a violent squall or tempest. Mists obscure rather than illumine, and, unlike rain-bearing clouds, they yield no water. Thus the paired metaphors expose both barrenness and transience: the false teachers cannot sustain those whom they entice, and their own course is governed by the coming divine judgment. The concluding clause retains the judgment formula found in Jude: “the gloom of darkness” (ὁ ζόφος τοῦ σκότους) “has been reserved” (τετήρηται, perfect passive of tēreō). The perfect indicates a judgment already fixed and kept in readiness by God, even though its public execution remains future. In its new setting, the allusion confirms that the deceptive promise of liberty in 2:19 is answered by a divinely appointed destiny of darkness for those who corrupt others.

Peter employs ἀρετή (aretē) to denote the moral excellence that appropriately proceeds from faith and corresponds to the excellence of God or Christ named in v. 3. The term can signify excellence in a broad sense, including the admirable quality by which a person fulfills his proper calling; in Greek moral discourse it could refer to the virtues that constitute a noble and excellent life. Peter does not adopt this vocabulary as an endorsement of autonomous pagan moral formation. Its immediate theological setting is decisive: believers have been called through God's own “glory and excellence” (διὰ δόξης καὶ ἀρετῆς, v. 3), and have received promises by which they become partakers of the divine nature (v. 4). Human ἀρετή is therefore the creaturely, ethical correspondence to the divine ἀρετή that has effectually called them. The imperative ἐπιχορηγήσατε (epichorēgēsate, aorist active imperative, “supply” or “furnish”) governs the sequence of qualities. The dative phrase ἐν τῇ πίστει ὑμῶν is best understood as identifying faith as the sphere or foundational possession in which virtue is to be furnished. Peter does not represent virtue as an alternative to faith, nor as an achievement that supplements faith's insufficiency. Faith, directed toward the God who has granted all things necessary for life and godliness (v. 3), must bear the form of moral excellence. In this context ἀρετή includes courageous fidelity to the good, rather than a vague respectability or an abstract catalogue of classical virtues. Its placement before γνῶσις (gnōsis, “knowledge”) also guards the character of the knowledge Peter commends. The knowledge added in virtue is not speculative enlightenment detached from conduct, a significant contrast in a letter concerned with corrupt teachers whose claims to knowledge coexist with immorality (2:1–3, 18–19). True knowledge grows within a life already ordered by faith and moral excellence; it is knowledge consonant with the holy character of the One who called his people.

Peter charges the scoffers with culpable, motivated disregard of the biblical testimony to creation and the flood, rather than with innocent lack of information. The construction λανθάνει γὰρ αὐτοὺς τοῦτο (lanthanei gar autous touto) may be rendered literally, "for this escapes their notice," but the present active participle θέλοντας (thelontas, accusative masculine plural, "willing," "desiring") agrees with αὐτούς and qualifies the manner in which the fact escapes them. Their ignorance is voluntary: the reality is obscured to them because they are disposed not to acknowledge it. Thus translations such as "they deliberately overlook" rightly bring out the force of the participle, even though the verb λανθάνω itself speaks of something being hidden from one's awareness. The demonstrative τοῦτο (touto, "this") introduces the content clause beginning with ὅτι: the ancient existence of the heavens and the formation of the earth by God's word, in relation to water. In the ensuing argument, this creation order and the world-destroying flood demonstrate that the present order has never been autonomous or permanently fixed. The scoffers of vv. 3-4 reason from an allegedly unchanging world to the impossibility of Christ's promised coming; Peter identifies their premise as selective blindness to God's prior acts of creation and judgment. Their intellectual claim is therefore inseparable from their moral posture, already described in v. 3 as a life governed by their own desires.

“The promise” refers chiefly to the promised coming of Christ and the eschatological consummation associated with it, rather than to the whole collection of divine promises. The immediate issue has been framed by the scoffers’ challenge, “Where is the promise of his coming?” (3:4), and Peter answers their charge that the expected event has failed to occur. The singular ἐπαγγελία (epangelia) therefore recalls the particular promise under dispute: the Lord’s return, the day of judgment, and the new heavens and new earth that follow (3:7, 10, 13). The genitive τῆς ἐπαγγελίας may be rendered “with respect to the promise” or, idiomatically, “in fulfilling the promise.” The present indicative βραδύνει (bradynō) denies that the apparent interval constitutes negligent delay. What some people construe as βραδύτης (bradutēs), “slowness,” is instead the Lord’s μακροθυμία (makrothymia), his longsuffering restraint before the appointed day. Peter has already established that divine reckoning of time differs from human calculation (3:8); verse 9 adds that the interval has a moral and redemptive purpose. The promise is thus certain, though its fulfillment is governed by God’s appointed purpose rather than by the scoffers’ expectations. Peter does not soften the reality of the coming judgment in order to explain the delay. On the contrary, the postponement of that judgment is the setting in which repentance is granted, while the promised day itself remains the controlling horizon of the paragraph.

Peter’s designation of Noah as “eighth” (ὄγδοον, accusative masculine singular of ὄγδοος) identifies him as belonging to the total company of eight whom God preserved through the flood. The ordinal agrees grammatically with Νῶε and stands with an implied noun such as “person”: “Noah, the eighth [person], a herald of righteousness.” It does not mean that Noah was the eighth preacher, nor does it place him eighth in the genealogical line from Adam, where Genesis counts him as the tenth generation (Gen. 5). The expression reflects the eight occupants of the ark: Noah and his wife, his three sons, and their wives (Gen. 7:7, 13; 8:16, 18). Peter’s own later reference confirms this reading, for 1 Peter 3:20 states that “a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water.” Thus, while Noah is named as the righteous herald and representative head of the preserved family, the phrase includes the household joined to him in deliverance. Within 2 Peter 2:4-10, the point is that the judgment upon the ancient world was comprehensive, yet God guarded a defined remnant. The same God who did not spare the ungodly nevertheless preserved Noah and the seven associated with him, establishing the pattern by which the passage argues that the Lord knows how to rescue the godly while keeping the unrighteous for judgment.

Peter identifies Jesus Christ as the one who is both “our Lord” and “Savior.” The phrase τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν καὶ σωτῆρος Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ places one article, τοῦ, before two singular personal nouns, κυρίου (kyrios, “Lord”) and σωτῆρος (sōtēr, “Savior”), joined by καί. The proper name Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ stands in apposition to the coordinated titles. In ordinary Greek usage, this construction presents the two titles as belonging to the same person, rather than distinguishing one person as Lord from another as Savior. The possessive ἡμῶν modifies the coordinated expression and marks the believers' relation to Christ. The syntax therefore strongly supports the traditional rendering, “our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ,” rather than a rendering that separates the titles. It also accords with 2 Peter 1:1, where a comparable construction speaks of “our God and Savior Jesus Christ.” Although κύριος can at times function as a respectful human title, its repeated use in this letter for Jesus, together with the designation “Savior” and the ascription of δόξα (doxa, “glory”) to him in the following clause, belongs to the letter's high Christology. Peter does not offer a developed metaphysical argument at this point, but he confesses Christ in titles and honors that, within the apostolic witness, are inseparable from the divine identity and saving prerogative of God. The final doxology confirms that the antecedent of αὐτῷ (“to him”) is Jesus Christ. Glory is assigned to the same Christ in whom believers are commanded to grow in χάρις (charis, “grace”) and γνῶσις (gnōsis, “knowledge”). The present imperative αὐξάνετε (auxanete) thus directs growth toward the Lord and Savior whose grace supplies it and whose knowledge defines it; the ensuing praise locates that continuing growth within Christ's eternal glory.

The participle ἀδικούμενοι (adikoumenoi), a present middle-passive participle, carries a passive sense here: the false teachers are receiving injury or ruin as the recompense for the injury they have done. Peter is not depicting them as innocent victims of injustice. The cognate pairing ἀδικούμενοι ... ἀδικίας ("being wronged ... of unrighteousness") is deliberate wordplay: those characterized by ἀδικία, moral injustice and lawlessness, receive a fitting μισθός (misthos), a wage or recompense, in the form of adverse judgment. This clause continues the judicial logic of v. 12, where these men are said to be destroyed in their destruction. The present participle can portray the recompense as already certain and, in some measure, already operative, though the surrounding context plainly includes the final judgment reserved for the ungodly (2:9, 12, 17). Their conduct brings its appropriate return from God, whose judgment is neither arbitrary nor disproportionate. The language also recalls the biblical principle that sin pays wages, while Peter immediately specifies the character of their sin: they treat luxurious self-indulgence in broad daylight as pleasure, publicly displaying the corruption that makes them “spots and blemishes” within the community's fellowship.

Peter’s change from “the day of the Lord” (v. 10) to “the day of God” does not designate two distinct eschatological events. It identifies the same final day from a complementary perspective: it is the day of the Lord in its sudden judicial arrival, and the day of God as the public consummation of God’s sovereign purpose in judgment and cosmic renewal. The expression recalls the Old Testament “day of the LORD,” the appointed time when the God of Israel intervenes decisively to judge evil and vindicate his righteousness. In the immediate context, this is the day in which the present heavens and earth undergo fiery dissolution and are succeeded by “new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells” (v. 13). The construction τὴν παρουσίαν τῆς τοῦ θεοῦ ἡμέρας is literally “the coming of the day of God.” Παρουσία (parousia), accusative singular, ordinarily denotes an arrival or presence and is frequently associated in the New Testament with Christ’s return. Here its genitive complement is “the day of God,” so that the image is the arrival of that eschatological day itself. This wording does not displace Christ from the final advent, since the letter has already described the promised παρουσία in 3:4 and has identified Jesus Christ as the coming Judge of the living and the dead (3:7; cf. 1:16). Rather, Peter can speak of the παρουσια of the day because Christ’s appearing brings that day into its manifested reality. The designation “of God” emphasizes that the final conflagration and renewal are God’s own judicial act, answering the scoffers’ denial that the Creator will bring his moral government of the world to its appointed end.

In this context στοιχεῖα (stoicheia) denotes the constituent structures of the present created order, including the heavenly realm, rather than elementary religious principles or hostile spiritual beings. The term can denote basic components, ordered celestial bodies, or elementary teachings, and Paul uses it in Galatians and Colossians for “elemental principles” associated with the old age. Yet Peter's immediate sequence governs its sense here: “the heavens” pass away, the στοιχεῖα are dissolved by burning, and “the earth and the works in it” come under divine disclosure. The word therefore belongs to his cosmic description of the day of the Lord. The plural στοιχεῖα likely includes the material constituents and ordered heavenly bodies that make up the old cosmos. Jewish and Greco-Roman usage could call the basic material elements στοιχεῖα, while biblical descriptions of the day of the Lord regularly include the shaking or darkening of sun, moon, and stars. Peter's wording does not require a technical ancient theory of four elements; it affirms that the created order in its present, fallen form is subject to God's eschatological judgment. The future passive λυθήσεται (lythēsetai, “will be dissolved”) portrays its disintegration under divine action. The participle καυσούμενα (kausoumena, present passive nominative neuter plural, “being burned” or “set ablaze”) specifies the means or accompanying condition of that dissolution. Fire in the preceding verse has already been appointed for “the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men,” and here it reaches the cosmos implicated in the curse and occupied by human works. This does not imply that matter is intrinsically evil or that creation is finally abandoned. The following promise of “new heavens and a new earth” (3:13) places this catastrophic language within the biblical expectation that God judges the old order and establishes a renewed creation characterized by righteousness.

Peter uses εὐσέβεια (eusebeia) to designate a reverent, God-directed manner of life that arises within persevering faith. The term could denote proper religious devotion in wider Greek usage, including respect owed to the gods and to the order of life associated with them. In this context, however, its content is governed by Peter’s confession of the one true God and by the knowledge of Christ. Godliness is therefore conduct shaped by due reverence before God, consistent with the divine power that has granted believers all things pertaining to “life and godliness” (1:3). The repeated construction, ἐν δὲ τῇ ὑπομονῇ τὴν εὐσέβειαν, continues the elliptical command to “supply” the virtues introduced in v. 5. The dative phrase ἐν τῇ ὑπομονῇ (“in endurance”) presents endurance as the setting in which godliness is to be furnished and displayed. Endurance under testing must not become stoic toughness or grim persistence; it is to be marked by settled reverence toward God. This placement also prepares for the relational virtues of brotherly affection and love in v. 7. Godliness stands between steadfastness in adversity and the concrete love of fellow believers, joining fidelity toward God with the ethical life that accords with his character.

The singular κυριότης (kyriotēs, “lordship,” “dominion”) denotes authority or dominion in the abstract, whereas the plural δόξαι (doxai, “glories”) refers to glorious personal beings. Peter therefore portrays the teachers as repudiating the authority established by God and, in particular, as speaking irreverently against heavenly dignitaries. The two descriptions are closely related: their contempt for legitimate dominion manifests itself in their reckless slander of beings whom God has invested with glory and authority. A reference to merely human civil rulers is unlikely. Although Scripture elsewhere requires honor toward governing authorities, the immediate sequel identifies angels as the relevant comparison: angels, though greater in strength and power, do not bring a slanderous judgment “against them before the Lord” (v. 11). The parallel in Jude 8 is still more explicit, joining the rejection of κυριότης with blasphemy against δόξαι and then illustrating proper angelic restraint through Michael’s dispute with the devil (Jude 9). In this setting δόξαι most naturally denotes angelic or celestial powers. Whether the particular beings reviled are holy angels, evil angels, or heavenly powers generally cannot be determined with precision; the point is that the false teachers presume to pronounce abusive judgments in a realm before which even angels speak with reverent restraint. The term κυριότης can designate a rank within the heavenly order, as in Ephesians 1:21 and Colossians 1:16, but here its singular and its association with καταφρονοῦντας (kataphroneō, present active participle, “despising”) favor the broader sense of divinely constituted lordship. Their moral defilement is thus joined to theological insubordination: they reject the limits and authorities God has ordained, and their self-willed speech exposes that rebellion.

The imagery in v. 19 is fundamentally eschatological: the prophetic word functions as a lamp for the present dark age until the dawning of the final day and the rising of the morning star. The conjunction ἕως οὗ (“until”) governs both aorist subjunctives, διαυγάσῃ (diaugazō, “dawn” or “shine through”) and ἀνατείλῃ (anatellō, “rise”). This construction marks the terminus of the lamp’s provisional function, not a recurring experience available independently of the promised consummation. The immediate context has identified apostolic preaching with Christ’s future παρουσία, or coming (1:16), and the later argument anticipates “the day of the Lord” and the new creation (3:10-13). The daybreak therefore denotes the public arrival of God’s final saving judgment and glory. The φωσφόρος (phōsphoros), literally “light-bearer” and commonly used of the morning star, belongs to the same dawn metaphor. Although the noun is not elsewhere used in the New Testament, its association with Christ is consonant with Revelation 22:16, where Jesus calls himself “the bright morning star.” Peter may thus intend Christ himself as the star whose appearing accompanies the day, though the image can also denote the dawning eschatological light brought by Christ. The former sense best accounts for the personal force of the star’s “rising” and for the Christological horizon established by the transfiguration in vv. 16-18. The phrase ἐν ταῖς καρδίαις ὑμῶν (“in your hearts”) does not reduce the daybreak to a private inward illumination or identify it simply with conversion. In biblical usage the heart is the center of understanding, faith, and moral perception. Peter describes the final revelation as received and fully recognized within believers, in contrast to the present obscurity in which prophecy is attended as a lamp in an αὐχμηρὸς τόπος, a murky or squalid place. The verse therefore distinguishes the church’s present possession of the prophetic Scriptures from the future fullness of sight and knowledge brought by Christ’s appearing; the inward reference expresses the consummation’s effect upon believers rather than relocating the parousia into subjective experience.

The designation “holy mountain” interprets the Transfiguration as a theophanic event rather than identifying a mountain whose geographical name or later cultic status was known to Peter's readers. The adjective ἁγίῳ (hagios), dative singular modifying ὄρει (oros, “mountain”), marks the place as holy because of the divine presence and revelation manifested there. Peter has just referred to the majestic glory and to the Father's audible declaration concerning the Son (vv. 17-18); the mountain is therefore sanctified within the narrative by the presence of Christ in glory and by the voice from heaven. The phrase also evokes the Old Testament pattern in which mountains become holy settings for divine self-disclosure, especially Sinai or Horeb (Exod. 3:5; 19:23) and Zion as the locus of God's royal presence. The Transfiguration narratives themselves contain Mosaic and Sinai-like features: ascent of a mountain, radiant glory, a cloud, divine speech, and the presence of Moses. Peter's wording consequently presents the apostolic experience as a true revelation of God, one that confirms the prophetic word discussed immediately afterward (vv. 19-21). It does not establish that the Transfiguration occurred on Sinai, nor does it require identification with a later traditional site such as Tabor. The canonical accounts leave the mountain unnamed, and 2 Peter supplies a theological characterization rather than geographical information. The plural pronoun ἡμεῖς (“we”) and the plural participle ὄντες (“being”) root this designation in the witness of those present with Christ. The holiness belongs first to the revelatory occurrence attested by the apostles, not to an independently sacred landscape. Thus Peter's language heightens the authority of the event without directing attention to the later veneration or precise location of the mountain.

Peter acknowledges a real difficulty in portions of Paul’s correspondence without attributing defect, ambiguity of authority, or error to Paul. The predicate expression δυσνόητά τινα (dysnoēta tina), “certain things difficult to understand,” uses the indefinite plural τινα to limit the claim: some matters, rather than the whole of Paul’s teaching, require careful comprehension. The adjective denotes what is difficult to grasp intellectually; it does not mean unintelligible or inaccessible. This qualification coheres with the preceding reference to the wisdom given to Paul (v. 15), which presents his teaching as divinely granted wisdom even where its argument or implications may be demanding. The difficulty identified is therefore not the source of the false reading, as though complexity excused distortion. The subjects who distort these matters are οἱ ἀμαθεῖς καὶ ἀστήρικτοι, “the untaught and unstable.” Ἀμαθεῖς (amathēs) describes persons lacking sound instruction, while ἀστήρικτοι (astēriktos), “unsettled” or “unestablished,” recalls the danger of being carried away from steadfastness in v. 17. Their problem is moral and doctrinal instability, not merely limited intellectual capacity. The present tense στρεβλοῦσιν (streblousin), “they twist,” portrays a continuing practice of forcing the sense of difficult texts into a distorted form. The verb can carry the idea of wrenching or torturing something out of its proper shape. In the immediate context, Paul’s teaching about the Lord’s patience and salvation (vv. 9, 15) may have been particularly vulnerable to abuse by those who denied or trivialized the coming judgment. Peter thus neither discourages serious engagement with difficult apostolic teaching nor treats obscurity as a defect in it. He warns that texts requiring disciplined interpretation can be perverted by persons already resistant to the truth, and that such perversion issues in their own ἀπώλεια (apōleia), destruction, the judgment repeatedly associated in this chapter with the day of the Lord.

The phrase does not promise the godly exemption from every earthly affliction; it affirms the Lord’s certain ability to preserve and finally rescue them from testing that culminates in divine judgment. Peter draws this conclusion from the two preceding historical examples. Noah was preserved through the flood while the ungodly world perished (2:5), whereas Lot was brought out before Sodom’s destruction fell (2:7-8). The differing forms of deliverance preclude reducing ἐκ πειρασμοῦ (ek peirasmou, “out of testing”) to one temporal pattern, such as removal prior to distress. In both cases, the decisive point is that God distinguished the righteous from those appointed to judgment. Πειρασμός (peirasmos) can denote a test, trial, or temptation, and its sense here is governed by the judicial context of 2:4-10. The singular likely gathers up the peril faced by the godly amid a corrupt generation and under the prospect of divine visitation. The present middle infinitive ῥύεσθαι (rhuesthai, “to rescue, deliver”) depicts God’s continuing capacity to save his people, while οἶδεν (oiden), formally a perfect with present force, declares his settled and effectual knowledge of how to do so. This is not bare foreknowledge but the wisdom and power demonstrated in the acts of judgment just rehearsed. “Godly” (εὐσεβεῖς, eusebeis) identifies those characterized by reverence toward God, a category exemplified by Noah, “a preacher of righteousness,” and Lot, whose righteous soul was distressed by lawless conduct. Peter’s contrast is therefore ethical and covenantal: the Lord knows those who fear him and does not lose them when judgment comes. The verse offers no support for the thought that present trials are absent from the godly person’s course; rather, the preceding narratives establish that God’s preservation of the righteous remains certain even when their deliverance occurs amid, or immediately before, catastrophic judgment.

The singular παροιμίας (paroimias, "proverb") treats the paired dog and sow sayings as one composite proverbial testimony to the condition of the apostates. The first clause clearly corresponds to Proverbs 26:11, where a dog returns to its vomit; the sow clause, though not found in the Old Testament in this form, completes the same judgment through a complementary image. The coordinated καί joins two proverbial lines that function together, rather than requiring that both derive from a single written source. The adjective ἀληθοῦς (alēthous, genitive feminine singular modifying παροιμίας) identifies the proverb as true in its correspondence to reality. It has proved true in the persons described throughout 2 Peter 2: their return to corruption after having escaped its pollutions has enacted the proverb's verdict. The dog, marked by the aorist participle ἐπιστρέψας (epistrepsas, "having returned"), resumes what it had expelled. The sow, described as λουσαμένη (lousamenē, aorist middle participle, "having washed herself"), goes εἰς κυλισμὸν βορβόρου, "into a rolling in mire." The washing is real at the level stated, yet it has not altered the animal's nature or appetite. By placing the sayings under one "true proverb," Peter interprets both images as a unified characterization of those who have turned from the way of righteousness (2:21). The wording does not invite a doctrine that regeneration can be finally lost. The broader description of these persons as slaves of corruption (2:19) and the animal metaphors themselves indicate that their temporary reformation and external acquaintance with the truth did not constitute the inward renewal that belongs to the redeemed. Their relapse discloses the nature that had remained unchanged.

The construction identifies Jesus Christ as both “our God” and “Savior.” In τοῦ θεοῦ ἡμῶν καὶ σωτῆρος Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, “God” (theos) and “Savior” (sōtēr) are singular personal nouns joined by καί (kai) and governed by the single article τοῦ. The following proper name, Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, stands in apposition to the combined designation. The most natural grammatical sense is therefore, “of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ,” rather than “of our God and of the Savior Jesus Christ.” This reading accords with the epistle’s Christology. Jesus is subsequently called “our Lord and Savior” (1:11; 2:20; 3:18), and the author ascribes to him an eternal kingdom, glory, and divine prerogatives. Although θεός can sometimes refer to the Father while σωτήρ refers to Christ in a broader context, the syntax here supplies no signal of such a division: a second article would ordinarily clarify separate referents. The designation also coheres with the New Testament’s confession of Christ’s full deity, while retaining the personal distinction between the Father and the Son. Peter grounds the recipients’ equally precious faith in the righteous saving action of the one whom he names as their God and Savior, Jesus Christ.

The singular ἐντολή (entolē, “commandment”) denotes the unified authoritative demand of the Lord Jesus as it was delivered through the apostolic witness, rather than one isolated saying or a list of separate apostolic regulations. Its singular form is therefore significant: though the apostles are plural, their proclamation is treated as a coherent deposit derived from one Lord and Savior. The genitive phrase τοῦ κυρίου καὶ σωτῆρος identifies Christ as the ultimate source and owner of the commandment. In the immediate context, that apostolic commandment includes the eschatological instruction that exposes the error of the coming scoffers. Verse 3 begins with the apostolic warning that scoffers will arise in the last days, and the remainder of the chapter defends the certainty of Christ's coming and of final judgment. Yet the term should not be narrowed to the prediction of scoffers alone. In 2:21, Peter likewise speaks of “the holy commandment” delivered to those who had known the way of righteousness; there it designates the binding moral and doctrinal claim of the gospel from which the false teachers have turned. The verse thus places the prophetic words and the apostolic commandment together as the church's normative testimony. The prophets had spoken beforehand of the day of the Lord and divine judgment, while the apostles transmitted Christ's authoritative teaching in the era of fulfillment. The distinction in expression, plural “words” (rhēmata) from the prophets and singular “commandment” from the Lord through the apostles, does not establish unequal authority. It reflects the many prophetic utterances and the single, coherent gospel obligation to which their fulfillment in Christ and the apostolic proclamation bear witness.

Peter declares a continuing resolve to keep his readers supplied with apostolic reminders, not a single future act of recollection. Μελλήσω (mellēsō), future active indicative of μέλλω, followed by the present infinitive ὑπομιμνῄσκειν (hypomimnēskō), expresses what Peter intends or is prepared to do: “therefore I will always be ready to remind you.” Although μέλλω can denote imminence, its force here is volitional and prospective, especially in view of the extended purpose statements in vv. 13-15. The present infinitive portrays reminding as an ongoing activity rather than as a completed intervention. The adverb ἀεί (aei, “always”) belongs semantically with the whole infinitival expression. Peter does not imply unceasing speech, nor does he question the readers’ actual possession of the truth. The concessive clause, καίπερ εἰδότας καὶ ἐστηριγμένους, explicitly affirms both their knowledge and their settled condition. Εἰδότας is a perfect active participle, denoting knowledge already acquired, while ἐστηριγμένους is a perfect passive participle of στηρίζω (stērizō), indicating that they have been established, ultimately by God’s preserving agency, in the truth they confess. Verses 13-15 explain the practical horizon of this future resolve. Peter judges it right to stir them up for as long as he remains in his bodily “tent” (v. 13), and he will endeavor that they may retain these matters after his departure (v. 15). The repeated reminders are therefore linked to the prospect of his death and to the continuing authority of his apostolic witness. Their stability does not render remembrance superfluous; rather, Peter treats persevering adherence to known truth as sustained through its faithful recollection.