⁵ you yourselves, as living stones, a spiritual house, are being built to be a holy priesthood^[a] to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God^(A) through Jesus Christ.

⁹ But you are a chosen race,^[a][b](A) a royal priesthood,^[c](B) a holy nation,^[d](C) a people for his possession,^[e](D) so that you may proclaim the praises^[f][g](E) of the one who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.^(F)

¹⁰ Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; you had not received mercy,^(A) but now you have received mercy.

¹⁶ Don’t you yourselves know that you are God’s temple^(A) and that the Spirit of God lives in you?^(B)

¹⁷ If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him;^(A) for God’s temple is holy,^(B) and that is what you are.

¹⁶ And what agreement does the temple of God have with idols?^(A) For we^[a] are the temple of the living God, as God said:

²⁹ On the contrary, a person is a Jew who is one inwardly,^(A) and circumcision is of the heart—by the Spirit, not the letter.^[a](B) That person’s praise is not from people but from God.^(C)

²⁴ The God who made the world and everything in it^(A)—he is Lord of heaven and earth^(B)—does not live in shrines made by hands.^(C)