1 Peter 1:13-25
New Catholic Bible
13 Convictions for Living.[a] Therefore, prepare your minds for action. Be calm and fix your hopes completely on the grace that you will be granted at the revelation of Jesus Christ. 14 Like obedient children, do not yield to the evil desires you had in your former ignorance. 15 He who called you is holy. Therefore, be holy yourselves in all your conduct. 16 For Scripture says, “Be holy, for I am holy.”
17 If you address as Father the one who judges everyone impartially on the basis of each person’s deeds, live in reverent fear during the time of your exile here. 18 For you are aware that you were ransomed from your futile way of life inherited from your ancestors not with perishable things like silver or gold, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ,[b] a lamb without blemish or defect.
20 He was chosen before the foundation of the world, but in this final age he has been revealed for your sake. 21 Through him you have come to believe in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and your hope are fixed on God.
22 Now that you have purified your souls by your obedience to truth so that you have genuine love for your brethren, love one another intensely with all your heart. 23 You have been born anew, not of perishable but of imperishable seed, through the living and enduring word of God.[c] 24 For:
All flesh is like grass,
and all its glory like the flower of the field.
The grass withers, and the flower fades,
25 but the word of the Lord endures forever.
It is this word that has been proclaimed to you.
Read full chapterFootnotes
- 1 Peter 1:13 An existence given over to passions and inclinations is without meaning or real purpose. But Christians are delivered from insignificance; it is God who becomes their reason for living and its accomplishment. This is translated by a profound reversal of sentiments and behavior. Believers have a sense of God and his holiness, and they bear something of God’s absoluteness in their existence. A life saved by the gift of Christ is an Easter. From then on, fraternal love becomes the goal. Thus, the Christian life is something new, a new birth, and a new destiny. It is developed by coming to maturity in one’s reflection upon the word of God.
- 1 Peter 1:19 Ransomed . . . with the precious blood of Christ: i.e., bought back or redeemed in the way laid out in the Scriptures (see Ex 13:13; 21:30). Our need for being ransomed comes from our bondage to Satan and sin (see Jn 8:34; Rom 6:17, 23). Jesus has bought our freedom by paying not silver or gold but his own blood (see Eph 1:7; Rev 5:9), i.e., his Death (see Mt 20:28; Mk 10:45; Heb 9:15) or Christ himself (see Gal 3:13).
- 1 Peter 1:23 Born anew . . . through the . . . word of God: the Christian’s new birth results from the action of the Holy Spirit (see Tit 3:5), but the word of God also plays an important part therein (see Jas 1:18). The latter presents the Gospel to us and summons us to repent and believe in Christ (see v. 25). The living and enduring word of God: another possible translation is: “the word of the living and enduring God.”
