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A Call to Holy Living

13 Therefore prepare your minds for action;[a] discipline yourselves; set all your hope on the grace that Jesus Christ will bring you when he is revealed. 14 Like obedient children, do not be conformed to the desires that you formerly had in ignorance. 15 Instead, as he who called you is holy, be holy yourselves in all your conduct; 16 for it is written, ‘You shall be holy, for I am holy.’

17 If you invoke as Father the one who judges all people impartially according to their deeds, live in reverent fear during the time of your exile. 18 You know that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your ancestors, not with perishable things like silver or gold, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without defect or blemish. 20 He was destined before the foundation of the world, but was revealed at the end of the ages for your sake. 21 Through him you have come to trust in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are set on God.

22 Now that you have purified your souls by your obedience to the truth[b] so that you have genuine mutual love, love one another deeply[c] from the heart.[d] 23 You have been born anew, not of perishable but of imperishable seed, through the living and enduring word of God.[e] 24 For

‘All flesh is like grass
    and all its glory like the flower of grass.
The grass withers,
    and the flower falls,
25 but the word of the Lord endures for ever.’

That word is the good news that was announced to you.

The Living Stone and a Chosen People

Rid yourselves, therefore, of all malice, and all guile, insincerity, envy, and all slander. Like newborn infants, long for the pure, spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow into salvation— if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.

Come to him, a living stone, though rejected by mortals yet chosen and precious in God’s sight, and like living stones, let yourselves be built[f] into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For it stands in scripture:

‘See, I am laying in Zion a stone,
    a cornerstone chosen and precious;
and whoever believes in him[g] will not be put to shame.’

To you then who believe, he is precious; but for those who do not believe,

‘The stone that the builders rejected
    has become the very head of the corner’,

and

‘A stone that makes them stumble,
    and a rock that makes them fall.’

They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do.

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people,[h] in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvellous light.

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

Footnotes

  1. 1 Peter 1:13 Gk gird up the loins of your mind
  2. 1 Peter 1:22 Other ancient authorities add through the Spirit
  3. 1 Peter 1:22 Or constantly
  4. 1 Peter 1:22 Other ancient authorities read a pure heart
  5. 1 Peter 1:23 Or through the word of the living and enduring God
  6. 1 Peter 2:5 Or you yourselves are being built
  7. 1 Peter 2:6 Or it
  8. 1 Peter 2:9 Gk a people for his possession

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