The Chosen Stone and His Chosen People^(A)

⁴ Coming to Him as to a living stone, ^(B)rejected indeed by men, but chosen by God and precious, ⁵ you also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

⁹ But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of ^(A)darkness into His marvelous light;

Christ Our Cornerstone

¹⁹ Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God,

The New Man

¹⁷ This I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord, that you should ^(A)no longer walk as ^[a]the rest of the Gentiles walk, in the futility of their mind, ¹⁸ having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the ^(B)blindness of their heart; ^19 (C)who, being past feeling, ^(D)have given themselves over to lewdness, to work all uncleanness with greediness.

²⁰ But you have not so learned Christ, ²¹ if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught by Him, as the truth is in Jesus: ²² that you ^(E)put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, ²³ and ^(F)be renewed in the spirit of your mind, ²⁴ and that you ^(G)put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness.