1 Peter 3:17-22

New Testament for Everyone

Suffering for doing right

¹⁷ It’s better to suffer for good conduct (if God so wills it) than for bad. ¹⁸ For the Messiah, too, suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, so that he might bring you to God. He was put to death in the flesh, but made alive by the spirit. ¹⁹ In the spirit, too, he went and made the proclamation to the spirits in prison ²⁰ who had earlier on been disobedient during the days of Noah, when God waited in patience. Noah built the ark, in which a few people, eight in fact, were rescued through water. ²¹ That functions as a signpost for you, pointing to baptism, which now rescues you—not by washing away fleshly pollution, but by the appeal to God of a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus the Messiah. ²² He has gone into heaven and is at God’s right hand, with angels, authorities and powers subject to him.