1 Peter 2:9-12

Amplified Bible, Classic Edition

⁹ But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a dedicated nation, [God’s] own ^[a]purchased, special people, that you may set forth the wonderful deeds and display the virtues and perfections of Him Who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.^(A)

¹⁰ Once you were not a people [at all], but now you are God’s people; once you were unpitied, but now you are pitied and have received mercy.^(B)

¹¹ Beloved, I implore you as aliens and strangers and exiles [in this world] to abstain from the sensual urges (the evil desires, the passions of the flesh, your lower nature) that wage war against the soul.

¹² Conduct yourselves properly (honorably, righteously) among the Gentiles, so that, although they may slander you as evildoers, [yet] they may by witnessing your good deeds [come to] glorify God in the day of inspection [^[b]when God shall look upon you wanderers as a pastor or shepherd looks over his flock].