⁵ The Lord saw that the wickedness of humans was great in the earth and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually.^{(A) 6} And the Lord was sorry that he had made humans on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.^(B)

¹⁷ For it is better to suffer for doing good, if suffering should be God’s will, than to suffer for doing evil. ¹⁸ For Christ also suffered^[a] for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you^[b] to God. He was put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit,^{(A) 19} in which also he went and made a proclamation to the spirits in prison, ²⁰ who in former times did not obey, when God waited patiently in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight lives, were saved through water.^{(B) 21} And baptism, which this prefigured, now saves you—not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for^[c] a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ,^{(C) 22} who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers made subject to him.^(D)

Good Stewards of God’s Grace

4 Since, therefore, Christ suffered in the flesh,^[d] arm yourselves also with the same intention (for whoever has suffered in the flesh has finished with sin),^{(E) 2} so as to live for the rest of your time in the flesh no longer by human desires but by the will of God.^{(F) 3} You have already spent enough time in doing what the gentiles like to do, living in debauchery, passions, drunkenness, revels, carousing, and lawless idolatry.^{(G) 4} They are surprised that you no longer join them in the same excesses of dissipation, and so they blaspheme.^[e](H)