07 Semantic Analysis — 2 Peter (Koine Greek → Burmese)

Methodology

This document analyzes 2 Peter in its original Koine Greek across all three chapters, first to last, per PRD Phase 1 Step 1. The core passage (2 Peter 1:16-21) receives verse-by-verse treatment of every load-bearing term. Every other chapter receives chapter-level treatment of its load-bearing theological vocabulary with the same analytic fields: original word, transliteration, literal meaning, semantic range, English variants, contextual theological meaning, and destination-language (Burmese) rendering with risk tier.

Per the hard rule governing this pipeline, any term already established in the baseline Romans translation_memory.json is reused exactly and marked “(reuse)” below rather than re-derived. New terms are proposed with a risk tier (Critical/High/Medium/Low) consistent with the baseline’s risk-tier conventions and are flagged for inclusion in an updated translation memory in a later phase.

Curriculum doctrines in view: The Reliability and Inspiration of Scripture; Growing in Christian Virtue; False Teachers and Their Judgment; The Certainty of Christ’s Return; The Day of the Lord and Final Judgment; Patience of God’s Timing; Divine Nature and Escaping Corruption.

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PART A — CORE PASSAGE: 2 Peter 1:16-21 (Verse-by-Verse)

2 Peter 1:16

Greek: Οὐ γὰρ σεσοφισμένοις μύθοις ἐξακολουθήσαντες ἐγνωρίσαμεν ὑμῖν τὴν τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ δύναμιν καὶ παρουσίαν, ἀλλ᾽ ἐπόπται γενηθέντες τῆς ἐκείνου μεγαλειότητος.

μῦθος (mythos) — “myth”

• Literal meaning: a tale, fable, invented story.
• Semantic range: fictional legend; often pejorative for a fabricated religious tale contrasted with historical fact.
• English variants: myths, fables, cleverly devised stories, fairy tales.
• Contextual theological meaning: Peter explicitly denies that apostolic testimony to Christ’s power and coming is an invented legend; it rests on eyewitness history.
• Burmese rendering: ဒဏ္ဍာရီ (dandari) — Medium risk. Burmese religious culture is saturated with dandari (Jataka birth-story legends, nat-spirit legends). Teaching notes must state plainly that the gospel account is being contrasted with, not classed among, dandari literature.

κύριος (kyrios) — “Lord” — (reuse: သခင်, Critical, per baseline lord). Applied here to Jesus Christ; exclusive supreme authority, not a venerated teacher.

Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ (Iēsou Christou) — “Jesus Christ” — (reuse: ယေရှု for Jesus, Critical; ခရစ်တော် (Khayitto) for Christ, per established Myanmar Bible transliteration standard in the baseline instruction set).

δύναμις (dynamis) — “power”

• Literal meaning: ability, might, capability.
• Semantic range: inherent power, miraculous power, authority-backed strength.
• English variants: power, might, ability.
• Contextual theological meaning: the personal power of the risen and returning Christ, previewed at the Transfiguration.
• Burmese rendering: တန်ခိုးတော် (reuse pattern from baseline power_of_god) — High risk. Never အနုဘော်တန်ခိုး (amulet/relic potency).

παρουσία (parousia) — “coming”

• Literal meaning: presence, arrival.
• Semantic range: a personal arrival/visit; in Hellenistic usage, the state ceremonial arrival of a king or dignitary; in NT usage, the technical term for Christ’s Second Coming.
• English variants: coming, appearing, advent, arrival, presence, return.
• Contextual theological meaning: the certain, future, visible return of Christ in glory — the central doctrinal anchor of this curriculum’s “Certainty of Christ’s Return.”
• Burmese rendering: ကြွလာတော်မူခြင်း (kywa-la-taw-mu-chin, “royal arrival”) — Critical risk, NEW term requiring registry addition. Must never be conflated with the Theravada expectation of the future Buddha Metteyya’s arrival (မိတ္တေယျ, already forbidden for “Messiah” in the baseline) nor with a repeating cycle of world-ages. This is a single, unrepeatable, historical event still future from the reader’s standpoint.

ἐπόπτης (epoptēs) — “eyewitness”

• Literal meaning: one who has personally observed; an “overseer” of a sight (epi- + horaō, “to see”).
• Semantic range: eyewitness/spectator; notably also the technical term for the highest grade of initiate in Greco-Roman mystery religions who had “seen” the cult’s secret vision.
• English variants: eyewitnesses, spectators, those who saw.
• Contextual theological meaning: Peter grounds apostolic testimony in ordinary historical sight of a real event (the Transfiguration), not mystical inner vision.
• Burmese rendering: မျက်မြင်သက်သေ (myet-myin thakthay) — Medium risk. Must be taught as ordinary eyewitness testimony of history, not an esoteric “seeing” attained through meditative insight (vipassana) or occult vision (weikza practice).

μεγαλειότης (megaleiotēs) — “majesty”

• Literal meaning: greatness, grandeur.
• Semantic range: magnificence, splendor; used elsewhere (Acts 19:27) of the pagan goddess Artemis’s “magnificence,” showing the word’s flexible, non-exclusive secular use.
• English variants: majesty, magnificence, greatness, grandeur.
• Contextual theological meaning: the visible splendor of Christ’s divine glory displayed at the Transfiguration, a preview of his Parousia glory.
• Burmese rendering: ဘုန်းတန်ခိုးအာနုဘော်တော် — High risk, doctrine: Deity of Christ. Must be taught as unique, unshared divine grandeur, not the generic “greatness” ascribed to a Buddha image, a powerful nat, or a king.

2 Peter 1:17

Greek: λαβὼν γὰρ παρὰ θεοῦ πατρὸς τιμὴν καὶ δόξαν φωνῆς ἐνεχθείσης αὐτῷ τοιᾶσδε ὑπὸ τῆς μεγαλοπρεποῦς δόξης, Ὁ υἱός μου ὁ ἀγαπητός μου οὗτός ἐστιν εἰς ὃν ἐγὼ εὐδόκησα—

θεός πατήρ (theos patēr) — “God the Father” — (reuse: ဘုရားသခင်, Critical; အဖ, Critical, per baseline god and father).

τιμή (timē) — “honor”

• Literal meaning: honor, value, price paid.
• Semantic range: esteem, worth, price.
• English variants: honor, worth.
• Contextual theological meaning: the Father’s public bestowal of honor on the Son at the Transfiguration.
• Burmese rendering: ဂုဏ်အသရေ — Medium risk. Distinguish from honor accrued through merit (ဂုဏ်အသရေ earned by kutho); here honor is conferred by the Father upon the eternal Son, not earned by him.

δόξα (doxa) — “glory” — (reuse: ဘုန်းတော်, High, per baseline glory).

μεγαλοπρεπὴς δόξα (megaloprepēs doxa) — “the Majestic Glory”

• Literal meaning: “fittingly-great glory”; a reverent periphrasis avoiding direct naming of God.
• Semantic range: a solemn honorific title for God the Father, echoing the OT Shekinah glory-cloud tradition (cf. Exodus 24:16-17).
• English variants: the Majestic Glory, the Excellent Glory (KJV).
• Contextual theological meaning: it is God the Father himself who speaks, not an impersonal radiant force.
• Burmese rendering: ဘုန်းတန်ခိုးအာနုဘော်တော်ကြီးမြတ်သောအရှင် — Critical risk, NEW term. Must be taught explicitly as a title for the personal God the Father, not abstracted into an impersonal “glorious light” comparable to the aura (ရွှေရောင်ဓာတ်) attributed to an enlightened being or a nat’s radiance.

υἱός (huios) … ἀγαπητός (agapētos) — “Son … beloved” — (reuse: ဘုရားသခင်၏သားတော်, Critical, per baseline son_of_god). ἀγαπητός (“beloved,” lit. “dearly loved one”) intensifies the unique Father-Son relationship; render as ချစ်တော်မူသောသားတော် — Critical, doctrine: Sonship of Christ.

εὐδοκέω (eudokeō) — “to be well pleased”

• Literal meaning: to think well of, be favorably disposed toward.
• Semantic range: approval, delight, good pleasure.
• English variants: well pleased, delighted, take pleasure in.
• Contextual theological meaning: the Father’s settled, eternal delight in the Son, declared publicly at both the Baptism and the Transfiguration.
• Burmese rendering: နှစ်သက်တော်မူခြင်း — Medium-High risk, doctrine: Sonship of Christ. Convey settled divine delight, not provisional approval earned by the Son’s conduct.

2 Peter 1:18

Greek: καὶ ταύτην τὴν φωνὴν ἡμεῖς ἠκούσαμεν ἐξ οὐρανοῦ ἐνεχθεῖσαν σὺν αὐτῷ ὄντες ἐν τῷ ἁγίῳ ὄρει.

φωνή (phōnē) — “voice” — literal meaning: sound, voice, utterance. Burmese: အသံတော် — Low risk.

οὐρανός (ouranos) — “heaven” — literal meaning: sky, heaven. Burmese: ကောင်းကင် — Low-Medium; standard term, no significant collision.

ἅγιος … ὄρος (hagios oros) — “holy mountain”

• Literal meaning: ὄρος = mountain; ἅγιος = set apart, sacred — (ἅγιος reuse: သန့်ရှင်းသော, High, per baseline holy).
• Semantic range: a place rendered sacred by a specific act of divine self-disclosure (the Transfiguration; traditionally Tabor or Hermon), not an inherently sacred site.
• English variants: holy mountain, sacred mountain.
• Contextual theological meaning: the mountain’s holiness derives entirely from the historical event of God’s revealed presence there, on that occasion — a one-time consecration, not an ongoing cultic site.
• Burmese rendering: သန့်ရှင်းသောတောင် — Medium risk. Myanmar has numerous venerated sacred mountains (e.g., Popa, the Golden Rock/Kyaiktiyo) understood as permanently inhabited by nat spirits and treated as ongoing pilgrimage/merit sites. Teaching must clarify this mountain is not a perpetual cultic destination or nat-abode, but the location of a single historical revelatory event.

2 Peter 1:19

Greek: Καὶ ἔχομεν βεβαιότερον τὸν προφητικὸν λόγον, ᾧ καλῶς ποιεῖτε προσέχοντες ὡς λύχνῳ φαίνοντι ἐν αὐχμηρῷ τόπῳ, ἕως οὗ ἡμέρα διαυγάσῃ καὶ φωσφόρος ἀνατείλῃ ἐν ταῖς καρδίαις ὑμῶν·

βεβαιότερον (bebaioteron) — “more sure/more firm” (comparative of bebaios)

• Literal meaning: more firmly established, more guaranteed.
• Semantic range: confirmed, certain, reliable, legally guaranteed.
• English variants: more sure, more certain, more fully confirmed.
• Contextual theological meaning: Scripture’s prophetic testimony is presented as an even firmer ground of certainty than Peter’s own eyewitness experience — doctrine: Reliability and Inspiration of Scripture.
• Burmese rendering: ပို၍ခိုင်မာသော/သေချာသော — Medium risk. Certainty must be anchored in God’s own prior spoken word, not in subjective religious experience or meditative confidence.

προφητικὸς λόγος (prophētikos logos) — “prophetic word”

• Literal meaning: λόγος = word, message; προφητικός = “belonging to a prophet.”
• Semantic range: the OT prophetic Scriptures collectively, as God’s spoken/written message — (προφήτης reuse: ပရောဖက်, Low, per baseline prophet; προφητεία reuse: ပရောဖက်ပြုချက်, Low, per baseline prophecy).
• English variants: prophetic word, prophetic message, the word of the prophets.
• Contextual theological meaning: the compound term itself carries elevated weight in 2 Peter — doctrine: Reliability and Inspiration of Scripture.
• Burmese rendering: ပရောဖက်စကားတော် — High risk (elevated from baseline’s Low, because 2 Peter 1:19-21 makes inspiration itself the theological point, not merely the prophet’s role).

λύχνος … ἐν αὐχμηρῷ τόπῳ (lychnos … en auchmērō topō) — “a lamp … in a dark/dry place”

• Literal meaning: λύχνος = oil lamp; αὐχμηρός = dim, murky, squalid.
• Semantic range: a small hand lamp giving limited but sufficient light in darkness.
• English variants: lamp shining in a dark place, light in a gloomy place.
• Contextual theological meaning: Scripture is a sufficient, guiding light for the present age until Christ’s return.
• Burmese rendering: မှောင်မိုက်နေရာ၌ထွန်းလင်းသောမီးအိမ် — Low-Medium; straightforward metaphor, minimal collision risk.

φωσφόρος (phōsphoros) — “morning star / day star”

• Literal meaning: “light-bearer” (phōs, “light” + pherō, “to bear, carry” — note the shared root with φερόμενοι in v.21).
• Semantic range: the planet Venus, herald of dawn; also later Latinized as “Lucifer” (cf. Isaiah 14:12, where it is ironically applied to a fallen figure — a translation-history caution, not relevant to this positive usage).
• English variants: morning star, day star.
• Contextual theological meaning: a figure for the dawning assurance of Christ’s certain return taking hold in believers’ hearts.
• Burmese rendering: မိုးသောက်ကြယ် — Medium risk, NEW term. Could be read through the lens of ဗေဒင် (astrology), already flagged as a collision risk for “prophet” in the baseline. Teaching notes must clarify this is a figurative image of certainty, not an astrological omen to be read.

2 Peter 1:20

Greek: τοῦτο πρῶτον γινώσκοντες ὅτι πᾶσα προφητεία γραφῆς ἰδίας ἐπιλύσεως οὐ γίνεται·

γραφή (graphē) — “Scripture”

• Literal meaning: writing, document.
• Semantic range: in NT usage, the authoritative sacred writings (OT canon, and by extension apostolic writings).
• English variants: Scripture, the Writing, the writings.
• Contextual theological meaning: the divinely authoritative written deposit of revelation — doctrine: Reliability and Inspiration of Scripture.
• Burmese rendering: ကျမ်းစာတော် (established form already used in the baseline doctrine_risk_registry.json entry name “ကျမ်းစာတော်မြတ်”) — High risk. Must be distinguished from the authority of the Tipitaka, which rests on the Buddha’s own enlightened insight rather than a personal God speaking through chosen human authors.

ἰδία ἐπίλυσις (idia epilysis) — “one’s own interpretation”

• Literal meaning: ἐπίλυσις (hapax legomenon in the NT) = “a releasing/unloosing,” hence “explanation, interpretation, solution”; ἰδία = “one’s own, private.”
• Semantic range: private interpretation by a reader, OR (a minority scholarly reading) the prophet’s own private origination/initiative in producing the message. Both readings converge on the same doctrinal point made explicit in v.21.
• English variants: private interpretation, one’s own interpretation, one’s own initiative.
• Contextual theological meaning: no biblical prophecy sprang from a human being’s own private religious insight or invention — the ultimate ground of Scripture’s authority is God, not the human author’s creativity.
• Burmese rendering: ကိုယ်ပိုင်အနက်ဖွင့်ဆိုချက် — High risk, NEW term, core to Inspiration of Scripture doctrine. Must be taught carefully to avoid two opposite errors: (1) implying Scripture may be freely reinterpreted by any individual reader apart from the text’s fixed meaning, and (2) implying Scripture is comparable to a solitary meditator’s or teacher’s privately attained insight (paññā) later written down and taught to disciples, as in the transmission model of Buddhist teaching lineages.

2 Peter 1:21

Greek: οὐ γὰρ θελήματι ἀνθρώπου ἠνέχθη προφητεία ποτέ, ἀλλὰ ὑπὸ πνεύματος ἁγίου φερόμενοι ἐλάλησαν ἀπὸ θεοῦ ἄνθρωποι.

θέλημα ἀνθρώπου (thelēma anthrōpou) — “the will of man”

• Literal meaning: θέλημα = will, wish, desire.
• Semantic range: human volition, intention, initiative.
• English variants: the will of man, human will, human initiative.
• Contextual theological meaning: negated — Scripture’s origin is explicitly NOT human self-initiative.
• Burmese rendering: လူ၏အလိုဆန္ဒ — Medium risk; straightforward.

φέρω / φερόμενοι (pherō / pheromenoi) — “to carry / being carried along”

• Literal meaning: to bear, carry, bring; the passive participle “being carried along” evokes a ship driven by wind (a well-attested nautical sense of this verb elsewhere in Koine Greek, e.g., Acts 27:15, 17).
• Semantic range: to be moved, propelled, borne along by an outside force while the one carried remains an active, personally-engaged agent (the human authors “spoke,” ἐλάλησαν, they were not rendered passive automatons).
• English variants: moved, carried along, borne along, inspired.
• Contextual theological meaning: the classic proof text for verbal-plenary inspiration — the Holy Spirit superintended human authors so that what they freely spoke/wrote was, in its origin, from God.
• Burmese rendering: ဝိညာဉ်တော်၏ဦးဆောင်တိုက်ဆောင်မှုကိုခံရ (or a shorter form: ဆွဲငင်ခေါ်ဆောင်ခြင်းခံရသည်) — CRITICAL risk, NEW term, must carry an explicit translator note. Burmese folk-spiritist practice includes nat-kadaw (spirit-medium) possession, in which the medium’s own will and identity are displaced by a possessing spirit. This verb must be explained as the Spirit’s active, personal superintendence of an author who remains conscious, willing, and articulate — categorically distinct from trance-possession, and distinct also from the self-generated absorption states (jhāna) of Buddhist meditative practice. This distinction should be flagged for mandatory theologian review at every occurrence, following the same escalation logic the baseline applies to Holy Spirit language.

πνεῦμα ἅγιον (pneuma hagion) — “Holy Spirit” — (reuse: သန့်ရှင်းသောဝိညာဉ်တော်, Critical, per baseline holy_spirit). Never ဝိညာဉ် alone or နတ်ဝိညာဉ်.

ἐλάλησαν ἀπὸ θεοῦ ἄνθρωποι (elalēsan apo theou anthrōpoi) — “men spoke from God”

• Literal meaning: λαλέω = to speak, utter.
• Semantic range: authoritative speech with a stated source (“from God,” ἀπὸ θεοῦ).
• English variants: men spoke from God, spoke as they were moved by God.
• Contextual theological meaning: dual authorship — real human speech, divine source and origin.
• Burmese rendering: လူတို့သည် ဘုရားသခင်ထံမှ ရသောအားဖြင့် မိန့်တော်မူ၏ — High risk, doctrine: Reliability and Inspiration of Scripture.

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PART B — CHAPTER-BY-CHAPTER STUDY OF THE WHOLE BOOK

Chapter 1 (remaining verses: 1:1-15; vv.16-21 treated above)

δοῦλος (doulos) — “servant/slave”

• Literal meaning: bondservant, slave, one wholly owned by a master.
• Semantic range: a slave with no legal autonomy; in NT epistolary openings, a title of honored submission to Christ.
• English variants: servant, slave, bondservant.
• Contextual theological meaning: Peter identifies himself first as Christ’s owned possession before naming his apostolic office — total ownership precedes and grounds authority.
• Burmese rendering: ကျေးကျွန် — Medium risk, NEW term. Must be taught as willing, honored self-identification with Christ’s ownership, not the degraded social status of a slave in Burmese social memory (which carries strong negative connotations).

ἀπόστολος (apostolos) — “apostle” — (reuse: တမန်တော်, Medium, per baseline apostle).

πίστις (pistis) — “faith” — (reuse: ယုံကြည်ခြင်း, Medium, per baseline faith). Note 1:1’s ἰσότιμος πίστις (“faith of equal standing/value”) stresses that Gentile believers’ faith is equal in worth to the apostles’ own — reinforces Romans’ Unity of Jews and Gentiles doctrine pattern.

δικαιοσύνη (dikaiosynē) — “righteousness” — (reuse: ဖြောင့်မတ်ခြင်း, Critical, per baseline righteousness). In 1:1, “the righteousness of our God and Savior” grounds the equal-standing faith just mentioned.

σωτήρ (sōtēr) — “Savior”

• Literal meaning: deliverer, rescuer, one who saves from danger or death.
• Semantic range: in the Greco-Roman world, a title given to emperors, healing gods (e.g., Asclepius), and benefactors; in the NT, exclusively applied to God and Christ as the one who rescues from sin and judgment.
• English variants: Savior, Deliverer, Rescuer.
• Contextual theological meaning: 2 Peter repeatedly pairs “Lord and Savior” (1:1, 1:11, 2:20, 3:2, 3:18) as a fixed christological title.
• Burmese rendering: ကယ်တင်ရှင် — Critical risk, NEW term (built on the reused root ကယ်တင် from baseline salvation). Must never be softened into a this-worldly benefactor or healer title; the Savior rescues from sin and coming judgment through Christ’s finished work, not through accumulated merit or the self-attained extinguishing of craving.

χάρις καὶ εἰρήνη (charis kai eirēnē) — “grace and peace” — (reuse: ကျေးဇူးတော်, Critical, per baseline grace; ငြိမ်သက်ခြင်း, Medium, per baseline peace).

γνῶσις (gnōsis) — “knowledge”

• Literal meaning: knowing, cognition, awareness.
• Semantic range: general knowledge, acquaintance, understanding; a virtue-ladder rung in 1:5-6.
• English variants: knowledge, understanding.
• Contextual theological meaning: knowledge that grows through disciplined Christian character formation.
• Burmese rendering: ပညာ — High risk, NEW term. ပညာ (from Pali paññā) is precisely the Buddhist term for liberating wisdom, the culmination of the threefold training (sīla-samādhi-paññā) that cuts through ignorance and ends the cycle of rebirth. Teaching notes must clarify this “knowledge” is relational and revealed, growing through the Spirit and God’s Word, not self-attained liberating insight.

ἐπίγνωσις (epignōsis) — “full/personal knowledge”

• Literal meaning: knowledge-upon-knowledge; intensified/directed knowing.
• Semantic range: intimate, experiential, personal knowledge of a person (God/Christ), distinct from abstract γνῶσις.
• English variants: knowledge, true knowledge, full knowledge, real knowledge.
• Contextual theological meaning: 2 Peter’s key recurring term (1:2, 1:3, 1:8, 2:20) — the saving, relational knowledge of Christ that governs the whole letter’s structure.
• Burmese rendering: ကျွမ်းဝင်သောအသိပညာ — High risk, NEW term, load-bearing across the whole book. Must consistently be distinguished from γνῶσις in teaching notes and taught as relational acquaintance with a living Person, not experiential confirmation of a teaching (paralleling the faith/saddhā distinction already documented in the baseline).

θεία δύναμις (theia dynamis) — “divine power”

• Literal meaning: θεῖος = “belonging to God, divine”; δύναμις = power.
• Semantic range: the inherent power that belongs to God’s own nature, granting all things needed for life and godliness.
• English variants: divine power, God’s power.
• Contextual theological meaning: 1:3’s grounding statement for the entire letter — everything needed for godly living has already been graciously given through the knowledge of Christ, not obtained through self-effort.
• Burmese rendering: ဘုရားဇာတိ၏တန်ခိုးတော် — Critical risk, NEW term (built on reused root တန်ခိုးတော်). Doctrine: Divine Nature and Escaping Corruption.

θεία φύσις (theia physis) — “divine nature”

• Literal meaning: φύσις = nature, essential character, that which a thing is by birth/origin; θεία = divine.
• Semantic range: the essential nature/quality that belongs to God; in 1:4, believers become “partakers” (κοινωνοί) of this nature.
• English variants: divine nature, the nature of God, God’s own nature.
• Contextual theological meaning: this is the single most theologically sensitive phrase in 2 Peter for a Buddhist-majority context. Believers partake of God’s nature through union with Christ and the transforming work of the Spirit — they do not become gods themselves, nor do they self-generate this nature through discipline.
• Burmese rendering: ဘုရားဇာတိ — CRITICAL risk, NEW term, headline doctrine “Divine Nature and Escaping Corruption.” ဇာတိ (“nature/birth-essence”) is the same root already used in the baseline’s incarnation entry (လူ့ဇာတိခံယူခြင်း, “taking on human nature”), preserving internal consistency. However, ဇာတိ is also the Pali technical term jāti (“birth”), one of the twelve links of dependent origination (paṭiccasamuppāda) leading to old age and death. Two distinct risks must be flagged for mandatory theologian review: (1) that “partaking of the divine nature” could be heard as a Christian version of attaining a higher plane of existence (deva or Brahma realm) through merit or meditative attainment, rather than a relational, Spirit-given transformation rooted in union with Christ; and (2) that it could be conflated with any notion of an inherent “Buddha-nature” or innate potential for enlightenment already present in every being. Neither association may be permitted to stand uncorrected in any teaching material.

φθορά (phthora) — “corruption”

• Literal meaning: decay, ruin, destruction.
• Semantic range: moral corruption; physical decay; ruin/destruction (also used in 2:12, 2:19 of the false teachers’ fate).
• English variants: corruption, decay, destruction, moral ruin.
• Contextual theological meaning: the corrupting effect of worldly ἐπιθυμία (lust/desire), which believers escape through partaking of the divine nature, not through self-purification.
• Burmese rendering: ပျက်စီးခြင်း — High risk, NEW term. Doctrine: Divine Nature and Escaping Corruption.

ἐπιθυμία (epithymia) — “lust/desire”

• Literal meaning: strong desire, craving, longing (epi- “upon” + thymos “passion”).
• Semantic range: neutral strong desire in some contexts; in 2 Peter consistently negative — sinful, corrupting craving.
• English variants: lust, desire, craving, passion.
• Contextual theological meaning: the corrupting craving of “the world,” from which believers escape by divine power, not self-discipline.
• Burmese rendering: တပ်မက်ခြင်း — High risk, NEW term. Close conceptual neighbor to Buddhist တဏှာ (taṇhā, craving), the root cause of suffering per the Second Noble Truth, which the practitioner extinguishes through the Eightfold Path. 2 Peter’s teaching that escape from corrupting desire comes through partaking of divine power/nature (a gift received, 1:3-4), not through self-effected extinguishing of craving, must be explicitly contrasted with the tanha framework in any teaching note.

ἐπάγγελμα / ἐπαγγελία (epangelma / epangelia) — “promise”

• Literal meaning: a pledge, a declared commitment.
• Semantic range: a formal promise, especially a divine pledge (cf. baseline covenant, ပဋိညာဉ်, for the related covenantal category).
• English variants: promise, pledge.
• Contextual theological meaning: God’s “precious and very great promises” (1:4) are the means by which believers become partakers of the divine nature; also the “promise of his coming” disputed by scoffers in 3:4, 9, 13.
• Burmese rendering: ကတိတော် — Medium risk; established Myanmar Christian usage. Distinguish from a negotiable human pledge; this is God’s own unbreakable word.

ἀρετή (aretē) — “virtue/excellence”

• Literal meaning: moral excellence, praiseworthy quality, valor.
• Semantic range: in Greek ethical philosophy, a cultivated moral excellence pursued through disciplined practice; in 1:3 applied to God’s own glory-and-excellence, in 1:5 the first rung of the believer’s virtue-chain.
• English variants: virtue, excellence, moral excellence, goodness.
• Contextual theological meaning: a Spirit-enabled quality to be actively “supplied” (ἐπιχορηγήσατε, lit. “furnish at one’s own expense,” a term for a wealthy patron funding a public event) into one’s faith, not self-generated ascetic achievement.
• Burmese rendering: ကောင်းမြတ်သောအကျင့် — High risk, NEW term. သီလ (precept-observance for merit) is explicitly rejected elsewhere in the baseline for righteousness and must likewise be avoided here; ἀρετή in 2 Peter is a grace-enabled fruit “supplied” by God’s power (1:3), not merit accumulated through disciplined precept-keeping. Doctrine: Growing in Christian Virtue.

ἐγκράτεια (egkrateia) — “self-control”

• Literal meaning: holding oneself in, self-mastery.
• Semantic range: control over one’s own desires/impulses, especially bodily appetite.
• English variants: self-control, temperance, self-mastery.
• Contextual theological meaning: a virtue-chain link (1:6), enabled by grace, not a stoic or ascetic self-discipline pursued for its own sake.
• Burmese rendering: မိမိကိုယ်ကိုချုပ်တည်းခြင်း — Medium risk. Note the conceptual overlap with Buddhist indriya-saṃvara (restraint of the senses) cultivated through personal discipline for merit; here it is a Spirit-enabled fruit, not a self-powered discipline.

ὑπομονή (hypomonē) — “perseverance/endurance”

• Literal meaning: remaining under (a burden); steadfast endurance.
• Semantic range: patient endurance under trial, steadfastness, patience.
• English variants: perseverance, endurance, patience, steadfastness.
• Contextual theological meaning: virtue-chain link (1:6); relevant also to the letter’s larger theme of persevering faithfully while awaiting Christ’s certain but delayed return.
• Burmese rendering: ခံနိုင်ရည် — Medium risk.

εὐσέβεια (eusebeia) — “godliness”

• Literal meaning: reverent piety, devout reverence toward God.
• Semantic range: right religious devotion and conduct; in Greco-Roman usage broadly “piety” toward gods/state; in the NT, right relationship with and reverence for the true God.
• English variants: godliness, piety, devotion.
• Contextual theological meaning: virtue-chain link (1:6-7) and a recurring term (1:3, 3:11) describing the whole shape of Christian life lived in light of Christ’s certain return.
• Burmese rendering: ဘုရားတရားရှိခြင်း — High risk, NEW term. Must be distinguished from routine Buddhist devotional piety expressed through pagoda offerings, alms-giving, and precept observance performed for merit; biblical godliness flows from partaking of God’s own power and nature, not from accumulating religious merit.

φιλαδελφία (philadelphia) — “brotherly affection”

• Literal meaning: love of brothers/siblings (philos + adelphos).
• Semantic range: familial affection extended to the Christian community.
• English variants: brotherly kindness, brotherly love, mutual affection.
• Contextual theological meaning: virtue-chain link (1:7), preparing for the culminating ἀγάπη.
• Burmese rendering: ညီအစ်ကိုချစ်ခြင်း — Low-Medium risk.

ἀγάπη (agapē) — “love”

• Literal meaning: selfless, committed love.
• Semantic range: the highest form of love in NT usage — God’s own self-giving love, and the love believers are to show one another; distinct from erotic (erōs) or mere affectionate (philia) love.
• English variants: love, charity (older translations).
• Contextual theological meaning: the capstone virtue of the chain in 1:5-7, “without which” all the other qualities are incomplete.
• Burmese rendering: ချစ်ခြင်းမေတ္တာ — High risk, NEW term (not present in the baseline Romans TM at all — flagged as a significant gap now filled). မေတ္တာ is also the precise Pali term for loving-kindness, one of the four brahmavihāra cultivated through meditation as an impersonal, universally-extended goodwill without a personal object or a personal source. Teaching notes must clarify that biblical ἀγάπη flows from God’s own personal, self-giving love demonstrated in Christ, and is directed toward specific persons in covenant relationship, not a self-cultivated meditative disposition of detached universal goodwill.

καθαρισμός (katharismos) — “cleansing/purification”

• Literal meaning: a washing, cleansing.
• Semantic range: ritual purification; moral cleansing from sin (as here, 1:9).
• English variants: cleansing, purification, purging.
• Contextual theological meaning: forgetting one’s past cleansing from sin leads to spiritual blindness and stagnation.
• Burmese rendering: စင်ကြယ်ခြင်း — High risk. The baseline’s sanctification entry already rejects ရေချိုးသန့်စင်ခြင်း for a related reason; here too, teaching must distinguish this cleansing (accomplished once by Christ’s finished work) from ritual ablution practiced at pagodas or before religious observance.

κλῆσις καὶ ἐκλογή (klēsis kai eklogē) — “calling and election” — (reuse: ခေါ်တော်မူခြင်း, High, per baseline calling; ရွေးကောက်ခြင်း, High, per baseline election). 1:10’s exhortation to “make your calling and election sure” must be taught as growing in the assurance of a settled divine act, not securing an uncertain future outcome by accumulating merit.

αἰώνιος βασιλεία (aiōnios basileia) — “eternal kingdom” — (reuse: ဘုရားသခင်၏နိုင်ငံတော်, Medium, per baseline kingdom_of_god, with ထာဝရ “eternal” added as a modifier).

σκήνωμα (skēnōma) — “tent, tabernacle” (euphemism for the body)

• Literal meaning: a tent, temporary dwelling.
• Semantic range: figuratively, the physical body as a temporary dwelling for the person (cf. 2 Corinthians 5:1, 4).
• English variants: tent, tabernacle, body.
• Contextual theological meaning: Peter’s body is a temporary dwelling he will soon “put off” — anticipates his approaching martyrdom.
• Burmese rendering: ကိုယ်ခန္ဓာတဲ — Low risk.

ἔξοδος (exodos) — “departure”

• Literal meaning: a going-out, a way out (exodus).
• Semantic range: departure, death (euphemistic).
• English variants: departure, decease, death.
• Contextual theological meaning: Peter’s death, framed (via the loaded word “exodus”) as a purposeful departure, not annihilation or an uncertain rebirth.
• Burmese rendering: ကွယ်လွန်ခြင်း — Low risk.

Chapter 2 — False Teachers and Their Judgment

ψευδοπροφήτης (pseudoprophētēs) — “false prophet”

• Literal meaning: pseudēs (“false, lying”) + prophētēs (“prophet”) — (προφήτης root reuse: ပရောဖက်, per baseline prophet).
• Semantic range: one who falsely claims to speak for God; a historical OT category (2:1a) paralleled by NT false teachers.
• English variants: false prophet.
• Contextual theological meaning: sets up the warning against false teachers as continuous with OT-era apostasy.
• Burmese rendering: မိစ္ဆာပရောဖက် — High risk. မိစ္ဆာ (Pali micchā, “wrong/false”) is the precise technical term for “wrong” in the Noble Eightfold Path’s contrast of sammā-diṭṭhi (“right view”) versus micchā-diṭṭhi (“wrong view”). While this compound is the already-established Myanmar Bible rendering, its Buddhist doctrinal resonance risks framing the gospel/false-teaching contrast as one more instance of “right path versus wrong path” within a shared soteriological system, rather than a categorical claim about a personal God’s exclusive truth. Flag for theologian review with an explicit teaching note on this distinction.

ψευδοδιδάσκαλος (pseudodidaskalos) — “false teacher”

• Literal meaning: pseudēs + didaskalos (“teacher”).
• Semantic range: one who teaches destructive error within the church, as opposed to outside it.
• English variants: false teacher.
• Contextual theological meaning: the letter’s central pastoral warning — false teachers arise from within the professing community.
• Burmese rendering: အယူမှားသင်ကြားသူ — High risk, same collision noted above extends to any မိစ္ဆာ-based alternative rendering.

αἵρεσις ἀπωλείας (hairesis apōleias) — “destructive heresy/sect”

• Literal meaning: αἵρεσις = a choosing, a chosen course, a faction/sect; ἀπώλεια = destruction, ruin.
• Semantic range: a divisive doctrinal faction leading to ruin.
• English variants: destructive heresies, damnable heresies (KJV), destructive opinions.
• Contextual theological meaning: false teaching is not merely mistaken but actively ruinous, bringing about the teachers’ own destruction.
• Burmese rendering: ပျက်စီးခြင်းသို့ရောက်စေတတ်သောအယူဝါဒ — High risk.

δεσπότης (despotēs) — “Master”

• Literal meaning: absolute master, owner (of a household or slave), distinct from κύριος’s broader range of “lord/sir/owner.”
• Semantic range: one who has outright ownership and authority, especially over slaves.
• English variants: Master, Lord, Owner.
• Contextual theological meaning: false teachers deny the Master who “bought” them — Christ’s absolute ownership rights over them by virtue of his redemptive purchase.
• Burmese rendering: အရှင်သခင် — High risk, NEW term, distinct from but related to the reused သခင် (κύριος). Requires a teaching note clarifying the ownership/purchase nuance.

ἀγοράζω (agorazō) — “to buy, redeem”

• Literal meaning: to purchase in the marketplace (agora).
• Semantic range: commercial purchase; theologically, the price Christ paid to redeem sinners (cf. 1 Corinthians 6:20, 7:23).
• English variants: bought, redeemed, purchased.
• Contextual theological meaning: even those who ultimately reject Christ were within the scope of his redemptive purchase — a weighty atonement-adjacent claim.
• Burmese rendering: ဝယ်ယူရွေးနှင်းတော်မူသော — Critical risk, doctrine: atonement/redemption (adjacent to baseline’s Critical-tier salvation category). Flag for mandatory theologian review at every occurrence.

ἀσέλγεια (aselgeia) — “sensuality”

• Literal meaning: licentiousness, unrestrained indulgence, shameless excess.
• Semantic range: unbridled indulgence in sensual pleasure, especially sexual.
• English variants: sensuality, licentiousness, debauchery.
• Contextual theological meaning: the moral fruit and calling-card of false teaching in 2 Peter (2:2, 2:18).
• Burmese rendering: ကာမဂုဏ်လွန်ကျူးမှု — Medium risk.

ὁδὸς τῆς ἀληθείας (hodos tēs alētheias) — “the way of truth”

• Literal meaning: ὁδός = road, way, path; ἀλήθεια = truth, reality.
• Semantic range: the true path/teaching of the Christian faith, as opposed to a false alternative.
• English variants: the way of truth, the true way.
• Contextual theological meaning: false teachers cause this way to be “blasphemed” (slandered) by outsiders because of their behavior.
• Burmese rendering: သမ္မာတရား၏လမ်းစဉ် — High risk. “Path/Way” (လမ်းစဉ်) language readily maps onto the Buddhist framework of the Path (magga) as a self-walked discipline toward liberation. Teaching notes must clarify that this “way” names revealed truth centered on Christ’s finished work, received by faith, not a self-cultivated discipline of gradual attainment.

Τάρταρος (Tartaros), verbal form ταρταρώσας (tartarōsas) — “cast into Tartarus” (2:4)

• Literal meaning: Tartarus, the Greek mythological abyss of punishment for rebellious divine beings (e.g., the Titans).
• Semantic range: in 2 Peter’s only NT occurrence of this verb, a place/state of confinement and judgment reserved for the fallen angels who sinned.
• English variants: cast down to hell, cast into Tartarus, committed to chains of darkness.
• Contextual theological meaning: doctrine: False Teachers and Their Judgment / The Day of the Lord and Final Judgment. God’s certain judgment on rebellious spiritual beings, held in confinement awaiting final judgment.
• Burmese rendering: ငရဲ — CRITICAL risk, NEW term requiring immediate registry flag equal in severity to the baseline’s salvation and resurrection entries. ငရဲ (ngayay) is the standard Burmese Buddhist term for Naraka, one of the 31 planes of existence within saṃsāra — a temporary, karma-determined realm of suffering from which a being is eventually reborn once its negative karma is exhausted. The Christian usage here is categorically different: a holding place of just, certain, and (per the wider NT witness) ultimately final judgment for morally culpable rebellion against a personal God, not a temporary station within an impersonal cycle of rebirth. This term must be flagged for mandatory theologian review at every single occurrence throughout 2 Peter and any future curriculum book, with an explicit translator note distinguishing Christian judgment/hell from Naraka, following the same pattern the baseline uses for salvation/nirvana and resurrection/rebirth.

κατακλυσμός (kataklysmos) — “flood” — literal meaning: a deluge, flood; Burmese: ရေလွှမ်းမိုးခြင်း — Low risk, refers to the historical Noahic flood (2:5).

Νῶε (Nōe) — “Noah” — proper name; Burmese established form: နောဧ — Low risk.

δικαιοσύνης κῆρυξ (dikaiosynēs kēryx) — “preacher of righteousness” — (δικαιοσύνη reuse: ဖြောင့်မတ်ခြင်း, Critical) + κῆρυξ (“herald, proclaimer”). Burmese: ဖြောင့်မတ်ခြင်းတရားဟောသူ — Medium risk.

Σόδομα καὶ Γόμορρα (Sodoma kai Gomorra) — proper names; established Myanmar Bible forms: သောဒုံနှင့် ဂေါမောရ — Low risk.

Λώτ (Lōt) — “Lot” — proper name; established form: လော့တ် — Low risk.

ῥύομαι (rhyomai) — “to rescue, deliver” — literal meaning: to snatch/pull out of danger. Burmese: ကယ်နှုတ်ခြင်း — Medium risk, conceptually adjacent to the reused salvation (ကယ်တင်ခြင်း) root; God personally and actively rescues the godly from trial, not an impersonal escape.

πειρασμός (peirasmos) — “trial/temptation” — Burmese: စုံစမ်းခြင်း — Medium risk.

κολαζομένους τηρεῖν (kolazomenous tērein) — “kept for punishment” — literal meaning: κολάζω = to punish/discipline; τηρέω = to keep, guard, reserve. Burmese: ဒဏ်ခတ်ရန်ချုပ်ထားခြင်း — High risk, doctrine: The Day of the Lord and Final Judgment. Conveys a certain, reserved, future judgment, not a mutable karmic account.

κυριότης (kyriotēs) — “lordship/dominion/authority” (2:10) — related to κύριος (reuse root: သခင်). Burmese: အာဏာစက် — Medium risk; here refers to a rank of authority (possibly angelic) being arrogantly despised by false teachers.

δόξαι (doxai) — “glorious ones” (2:10, plural of δόξα) — likely a reference to angelic beings/celestial dignities. Burmese: ဂုဏ်အသရေရှိသူများ — Medium risk; must be distinguished in context from δόξα as an attribute of God himself (reused elsewhere as ဘုန်းတော်).

ἄλογα ζῷα (aloga zōa) — “irrational animals/brute beasts” — literal meaning: without-logos (reason) creatures. Burmese: ဉာဏ်ကင်းသောတိရစ္ဆာန် — Low risk.

μισθὸς ἀδικίας (misthos adikias) — “wages of unrighteousness” — ἀδικία is the negative of δικαιοσύνη (reuse root). Burmese: မတရားမှု၏အခ — Medium risk.

σπίλοι καὶ μῶμοι (spiloi kai mōmoi) — “spots and blemishes” — Burmese: အညစ်အကြေးနှင့်အပြစ်အနာအဆာ — Low risk.

Βαλαάμ (Balaam) — proper name; established form: ဗာလမ် — Low risk.

πηγαὶ ἄνυδροι (pēgai anydroi) — “waterless springs” — Burmese: ရေမရှိသောစမ်းချောင်း — Low risk, vivid metaphor for false teachers’ empty promise.

ἐλευθερία (eleutheria) — “freedom/liberty”

• Literal meaning: freedom, liberty (from slavery or restraint).
• Semantic range: political/legal freedom; moral license; theological freedom from sin’s bondage.
• English variants: freedom, liberty.
• Contextual theological meaning: false teachers promise liberty while themselves enslaved to corruption — an ironic reversal.
• Burmese rendering: လွတ်လပ်ခြင်း — High risk. Risk of conflation with liberation from the cycle of rebirth (a moksha/nirvana-adjacent idea already flagged as Critical for salvation in the baseline). Here the concept is being used ironically of a false, self-indulgent “freedom” that is actually bondage — teaching notes must clarify this passage does not describe true Christian freedom (which is freedom from sin’s mastery through Christ) but a false teacher’s deceptive promise.

δουλόω (douloō) — “to enslave” — related to δοῦλος (reuse root ကျေးကျွန်). Burmese: ကျွန်ခံစေခြင်း — Medium risk.

Proverbial imagery (2:22): “a dog returns to its own vomit” and “a sow, after washing, returns to the mire” — retained as vivid literal imagery. Burmese: ခွေးသည်မိမိအန်ဖတ်ကို ပြန်လျက်သကဲ့သို့ … ဝက်မသည် ရေချိုးပြီးမှ ရွှံ့ထဲသို့ပြန်လူးသကဲ့သို့ — Low risk; retain the proverb’s earthy force rather than softening it.

Chapter 3 — The Day of the Lord and Final Judgment; Patience of God’s Timing

ὑπόμνησις (hypomnēsis) — “reminder” — literal meaning: a bringing to remembrance. Burmese: နှလုံးသွင်းသတိရစေခြင်း — Low risk.

ἐντολή τοῦ κυρίου καὶ σωτῆρος (entolē tou kyriou kai sōtēros) — “commandment of the Lord and Savior” — combines reused κύριος/σωτήρ roots with ἐντολή (“commandment,” cf. baseline’s holy commandment pattern in Romans’ law entry, ပညတ်တရား). Burmese: သခင်ဘုရားနှင့် ကယ်တင်ရှင်၏ပညတ်တော် — Medium-High risk; must not be confused with the Mosaic ပညတ်တရား category, though the same root is reused for consistency.

ἔσχαται ἡμέραι (eschatai hēmerai) — “the last days”

• Literal meaning: the final/end days.
• Semantic range: the present church age understood as the last phase before Christ’s return; also a technical eschatological marker.
• English variants: last days, end times, latter days.
• Contextual theological meaning: mockers are a predicted feature of this present age, not a sign that God’s promise has failed.
• Burmese rendering: နောက်ဆုံးသောနေ့ရက်များ — Medium risk, doctrine: The Certainty of Christ’s Return.

ἐμπαίκτης (empaiktēs) — “mocker/scoffer” — literal meaning: one who plays/jests at another’s expense. Burmese: ပြက်ရယ်ပြုသူ — Medium risk.

ἐπαγγελία τῆς παρουσίας (epangelia tēs parousias) — “the promise of his coming” — combines reused ကတိတော် (promise) with the Critical-tier NEW term ကြွလာတော်မူခြင်း (parousia, established above). Burmese: ကြွလာတော်မူခြင်း၏ကတိတော် — Critical risk, headline doctrine of this curriculum.

λόγος τοῦ θεοῦ (logos tou theou) — “the word of God” (of creation, 3:5)

• Literal meaning: God’s spoken word.
• Semantic range: God’s creative speech-act, by which the heavens and earth were formed and are sustained.
• English variants: the word of God, God’s word.
• Contextual theological meaning: creation and its coming judgment both proceed from God’s spoken word, not an impersonal cosmic process.
• Burmese rendering: ဘုရားသခင်၏အမိန့်တော်စကား — High risk, doctrine: Reliability and Inspiration of Scripture (creation account) / The Day of the Lord and Final Judgment.

ἡμέρα κρίσεως (hēmera kriseōs) — “day of judgment” — Burmese: တရားစီရင်တော်မူသောနေ့ — Critical risk, doctrine: The Day of the Lord and Final Judgment. Must be taught as a fixed, future, personal divine assize, not an ongoing impersonal karmic settling of accounts across lifetimes.

ἡμέρα κυρίου (hēmera kyriou) — “the day of the Lord” — combines reused κύριος root. Burmese: သခင်ဘုရား၏နေ့တော် — Critical risk, central to the final judgment doctrine, described as coming “like a thief” — sudden and unannounced.

μία ἡμέρα παρὰ κυρίῳ ὡς χίλια ἔτη (mia hēmera para kyriō hōs chilia etē) — “one day with the Lord is as a thousand years” (3:8)

• Literal meaning: a direct numerical comparison.
• Semantic range: a proverbial statement (echoing Psalm 90:4) that God’s experience of time is not bound by human temporal limitation.
• English variants: one day is as a thousand years, God’s time is not man’s time.
• Contextual theological meaning: God’s apparent “delay” in fulfilling the promised return is not evidence of unfaithfulness but of a different relationship to time altogether — doctrine: Patience of God’s Timing.
• Burmese rendering: သခင်ဘုရား၌ တစ်ရက်သည် နှစ်တစ်ထောင်နှင့်တူ၏ — High risk (as a governing concept-phrase, not a single lexical term). Must not be read as supporting a cyclical, indefinitely-repeating cosmology; God’s timing is purposeful and moving toward one definite consummation.

βραδύνει (bradynei) / μακροθυμεῖ (makrothymei) — “is slow” / “is patient/longsuffering”

• Literal meaning: βραδύνω = to delay, be slow; μακροθυμέω = “to have a long thymos (temper/spirit),” i.e., to be patient, forbearing.
• Semantic range: μακροθυμία is a relational quality of patient restraint toward another person, allowing opportunity for repentance.
• English variants: slow, slack (KJV); patient, longsuffering, forbearing.
• Contextual theological meaning: God’s delay in judgment is not slackness but purposeful, relational patience aimed at giving opportunity for repentance — doctrine: Patience of God’s Timing.
• Burmese rendering: နှေးကွေးတော်မမူ (not slow) / ရှည်ဖြည်းစွာသည်းခံတော်မူခြင်း (longsuffering) — High risk, NEW term. Must be distinguished from khanti (ခန္တီ/သည်းခံမှု), the Buddhist virtue of patient endurance cultivated by the practitioner as a personal discipline; here the patience belongs to God himself, is directed relationally toward sinners, and has a specific redemptive purpose (repentance), not self-cultivation of equanimity.

μετάνοια (metanoia) — “repentance”

• Literal meaning: a change of mind (meta- “change” + nous “mind”).
• Semantic range: a turning away from sin toward God, involving mind, will, and life-direction; not mere regret.
• English variants: repentance, turning, change of heart/mind.
• Contextual theological meaning: the purpose of God’s patience (3:9) — he desires all to come to repentance rather than perish.
• Burmese rendering: နောင်တရခြင်း — High risk, NEW term (notably absent from the baseline Romans TM despite its centrality to Romans 2:4 as well — flagged here as a gap to be filled for the whole curriculum going forward). Must be distinguished from a ritual confession of monastic infractions (āpatti-desanā) or a private feeling of remorse that offsets bad karma; biblical repentance is a Spirit-enabled turning toward the personal God in trust, issuing in a new direction of life.

ἡμέρα κυρίου ὡς κλέπτης (hēmera kyriou hōs kleptēs) — “the day of the Lord will come like a thief” — Burmese: သခင်ဘုရား၏နေ့တော်သည် သူခိုးကဲ့သို့ရောက်လာလိမ့်မည် — Critical risk, doctrine: The Day of the Lord and Final Judgment; stresses sudden, unpredictable arrival — urgency, not a scheduled or negotiable event.

στοιχεῖα (stoicheia) — “elements”

• Literal meaning: basic components, fundamental parts.
• Semantic range: the elemental substances of the physical cosmos (as here, 3:10, 12) — a distinct sense from Paul’s use of the term for spiritual/religious “elemental forces” (Galatians 4:3, 9; Colossians 2:8, 20).
• English variants: elements, elemental substances, fundamental components.
• Contextual theological meaning: the entire physical cosmos, down to its basic components, will be dissolved and refashioned at Christ’s return.
• Burmese rendering: လောကဓာတ်အစုအပေါင်းများ — Medium risk.

καινοὺς οὐρανοὺς καὶ γῆν καινήν (kainous ouranous kai gēn kainēn) — “new heavens and a new earth”

• Literal meaning: καινός = new (in kind/quality, not merely in time); a direct echo of Isaiah 65:17, 66:22.
• Semantic range: the final, once-for-all renewal of the entire created order.
• English variants: new heavens and a new earth, new creation.
• Contextual theological meaning: a linear, final, one-time cosmic renewal in which righteousness permanently dwells — the definitive answer to the corruption described throughout the letter.
• Burmese rendering: မိုးကောင်းကင်အသစ်နှင့် မြေကြီးအသစ် — Critical risk, NEW term. Must be distinguished from the Buddhist cosmology of repeating world-ages (kappa) that arise and are destroyed in an endless cycle; this is a single, final, permanent renewal, not one more iteration of an impersonal cosmic cycle.

ἄσπιλοι καὶ ἀμώμητοι (aspiloi kai amōmētoi) — “spotless and blameless” (3:14) — Burmese: အညစ်အကြေးကင်း၍အပြစ်ကင်းသော — Medium risk, echoing the reused righteousness/holiness vocabulary.

σωτηρία (sōtēria) — “salvation” — (reuse: ကယ်တင်ခြင်း, Critical, per baseline salvation). 3:15 explicitly identifies the Lord’s patience itself as salvation-oriented — the delay is for the sake of people’s rescue, not evidence of divine indifference.

Παῦλος (Paulos) — “Paul” — established Myanmar Bible form: ပေါလု — Low risk; 2 Peter 3:15-16 explicitly affirms Paul’s letters as Scripture, reinforcing the Inspiration of Scripture doctrine.

γραφή (graphē) — “Scripture” (3:16, “the other Scriptures”) — (reuse of the term already established above at 1:20: ကျမ်းစာတော်) — High risk; 3:16 places Paul’s letters within the same authoritative category as OT Scripture.

δυσνόητα (dysnoēta) — “hard to understand” — Burmese: နားလည်ရခက်သော — Low risk.

ἀμαθεῖς καὶ ἀστήρικτοι (amatheis kai astēriktoi) — “untaught and unstable” — Burmese: အတတ်မသင်ကြားရသေးသူများနှင့် တည်ငြိမ်မှုမရှိသူများ — Medium risk.

στρεβλοῦσιν (strebloūsin) — “twist/distort” — literal meaning: to twist, wrench (as on a rack). Burmese: ချွတ်ချော်အနက်ဖွင့်ခြင်း — Medium-High risk, doctrine: Reliability and Inspiration of Scripture — willful misinterpretation of Scripture leads to destruction, reinforcing 1:20’s warning against “private interpretation.”

πλάνη (planē) — “error” — literal meaning: a wandering, straying. Burmese: လမ်းလွှဲမှားခြင်း — Medium risk.

στηριγμός (stērigmos) — “steadfastness/firm standing” — Burmese: တည်ကြည်မှု — Medium risk.

αὐξάνετε ἐν χάριτι καὶ γνώσει (auxanete en chariti kai gnōsei) — “grow in grace and knowledge” (3:18, the letter’s closing exhortation) — combines reused χάρις (ကျေးဇူးတော်) with γνῶσις (ပညာ, established above). Burmese: ကျေးဇူးတော်နှင့် အသိပညာ၌ ကြီးပွားကြလော့ — High risk (compound of two flagged terms); the letter’s climactic summary statement, doctrine: Growing in Christian Virtue.

ἡμέρα αἰῶνος (hēmera aiōnos) — “day of eternity” (closing doxology, 3:18) — Burmese: ထာဝရနေ့ရက် — Low risk.

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Summary of Full-Book Coverage

All three chapters of 2 Peter have been analyzed first to last:

• Chapter 1 — introduces the letter’s foundational vocabulary of Savior, divine power/nature, the virtue-chain, and (in the core passage) inspiration of Scripture and the Transfiguration as guarantee of the Parousia.
• Chapter 2 — introduces the vocabulary of false teaching, angelic and historical judgment precedents, and moral corruption/false freedom.
• Chapter 3 — introduces the vocabulary of the Day of the Lord, cosmic dissolution and renewal, divine patience, and the closing charge to grow in grace and knowledge.

No chapter of 2 Peter is without load-bearing theological vocabulary; all three are represented above.