1 Peter 1:13-2:10

International Standard Version

Be Holy

¹³ Therefore, prepare your minds for action, keep a clear head, and set your hope completely on the grace to be given you when Jesus, the Messiah,^[a] is revealed. ¹⁴ As obedient children, do not be shaped by the desires that used to influence you when you were ignorant. ¹⁵ Instead, be holy in every aspect of your life, just as the one who called you is holy. ¹⁶ For it is written, “You must be holy, because I am holy.”^[b]

¹⁷ If you call “Father” the one who judges everyone impartially according to what they have done, you must live in reverent fear as long as you are strangers in a strange land. ¹⁸ For you know that it was not with perishable things like silver or gold that you have been ransomed from the worthless way of life handed down to you by your ancestors, ¹⁹ but with the precious blood of the Messiah,^[c] like that of a lamb without blemish or defect. ²⁰ On the one hand, he was foreknown before the creation^[d] of the world, but on the other hand, he was revealed at the end of time for your sake. ²¹ Through him you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope might be in God.

Love One Another

²² Now that you have obeyed the truth^[e] and have purified your souls to love your brothers sincerely, you must love one another intensely and with a pure heart. ²³ For you have been born again, not by a seed that perishes but by one that cannot perish—by the living and everlasting word of God.^{[f] 24} For

Now this word is the good news that was announced to you.

Live as God’s Chosen People

2 Therefore, rid yourselves of every kind of evil and deception, hypocrisy, jealousy, and every kind of slander. ² Like newborn babies, thirst for the pure milk of the word so that by it you may grow in your salvation. ³ Surely you have tasted that the Lord is good!

⁴ As you come to him, the living stone who was rejected by people but was chosen and precious in God’s sight, ⁵ you, too, as living stones, are building yourselves up into a spiritual house and a holy priesthood, so that you may offer spiritual sacrifices that are acceptable to God through Jesus, the Messiah.^{[j] 6} This is why it says in Scripture:

⁷ Therefore he is precious to you who believe, but to those who do not believe,

They keep on stumbling because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do.

⁹ But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people to be his very own and to proclaim the wonderful deeds^[o] of the one who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.