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The Greek text of this letter is not in good shape (Bigg refers to "the extremely bad state of the text”). 12 In the nature of the case, this book would not have had as wide a circulation as many of the other New Testament writings; with fewer copies around, the errors that were bound to creep in would have been harder to correct. Some of the problems are very difficult. Some seem so intractable that even cautious scholars will propose emendations. Thus, Westcott and Hort cite 2 Peter 3:10 as an example of a primitive corruption. They hold that εύρεθήσεται (heurethesetai, from ευρίσκω, G2351) "is the most original of recorded readings” but that it cannot be right. 13 However, there is nothing that leads us to think that the meaning of the epistle as a whole has been seriously affected by the state of the text. Reasonable solutions have been offered for most of the problems, and those that remain do not greatly affect the sense.
The language of 2 Peter is unusual. This letter has the highest proportion of hapax legomena of any New Testament book, and a few of them are not cited anywhere else in the whole of Greek literature. It seems that the writer was competent in the Greek that was the lingua franca of the world of his day—at least if his vocabulary is any indication.