2 Peter 3:8–9
Bible verses · Also called: 2 Peter 3:8-9, 2 Peter 3:8–9, One day is with the Lord as a thousand years, A thousand years as one day, The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, II Peter 3:8-9
- Bible verses
- First draft by AI
- Last edited 2026-10-04
- Encyclopedia home
8 But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.
9 The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
The text is the New Korean Revised Version (1998), shown under a licence from the Korean Bible Society. Wording may differ slightly from the Korean Revised Version and the Revised New Korean Standard Version. Read in the Korean Revised Version
A passage declaring that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day, and that the Lord is not slack concerning His promise because He is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. It answers the problem of the delay of the Second Coming and has also been drawn into debates over the length of the creation days and attempts to calculate the end times.
Context
Chapter 3 of 2 Peter responds to scoffers who ask, "Where is the promise of his coming?" (3:4). They claim that since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. Peter reminds his readers that God created the world by His word and judged it by the Flood (3:5–7), and in verse 8 he draws on Psalm 90:4 to say that God's time differs from human time. Verse 9 explains the delay as an expression of God's longsuffering, and verse 10 warns that the day of the Lord will nevertheless come as a thief in the night.
Interpretation
- A theological answer to the delay of the Second Coming: Because God is not bound by time, what appears slow from a human perspective is not a true delay; the interval is a time of grace in which God waits for repentance. Most traditions read the passage this way.
- "Not willing that any should perish": Together with 1 Timothy 2:4, verse 9 is cited as a text expressing God's universal saving will. The Arminian tradition reads it as referring to all people, while some Calvinists read it in context as referring to "you" (KJV "us-ward"), that is, the elect believers.
Debates and Issues
In its original sense, verse 8 is a figure of speech about the relativity of time, yet it has been used as the basis for various calculations. Some early church writings interpreted the six days of creation as six thousand years of history, to be followed by a thousand-year Sabbath rest, and such calculations sometimes led to later predictions of the date of the Second Coming. In the creation and evolution debate, the verse is cited in support of the day-age theory, which holds that the days of Genesis may have been long ages, while young-earth creationists counter that the verse has no bearing on the length of the days in Genesis. Major denominations regard using this verse to calculate the timing of the end as taking it out of context.
Related Passages
- Psalm 90:4
- 1 Timothy 2:4
- Matthew 24:36
- Romans 2:4
See also 6
🚩 Is there a problem with this article? Report it
Log in to report. Reports are reviewed within 24 hours.
Discussion 0
Share your thoughts, other viewpoints or corrections for this article.