1 Peter 1:13-25

New Testament for Everyone

¹³ So fasten your belts—the belts of your minds! Keep yourselves under control. Set your hope completely on the grace that will be given you when Jesus the Messiah is revealed. ¹⁴ As children of obedience, don’t be squashed into the shape of the passions you used to indulge when you were still in ignorance. ¹⁵ Rather, just as the one who called you is holy, so be holy yourselves, in every aspect of behavior. ¹⁶ It is written, you see, “Be holy, for I am holy.” ¹⁷ If you call on God as “Father”—the God, that is, who judges everyone impartially according to their work—behave with holy fear throughout the time in which you are resident here.

¹⁸ You know, after all, that you were ransomed from the futile practices inherited from your ancestors, and that this ransom came not through perishable things like gold or silver, ¹⁹ but through the precious blood of the Messiah, like a lamb without spot or blemish. ²⁰ He was destined for this from before the foundation of the world, and appeared at the end of the times for your sake, ²¹ for you (that is) who through him believe in the God who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.

Newborn babies

²² Once your lives have been purified by obeying the truth, resulting in a sincere love for all your fellow believers, love one another eagerly, from a pure heart. ²³ You have been born again, not from seed which decays but from seed which does not—through the living and abiding word of God. ²⁴ Because, you see—

That is the word that was announced to you.