Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

¹⁷ And if it be so that you call on the Father, who without respect of person judges according to each one’s works, see that you pass the time of your pilgrimage in fear. ¹⁸ For you know that you were not redeemed with corruptible silver and gold from the vain ways that you received from the fathers, ¹⁹ but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb undefiled and without spot. ²⁰ He was ordained before the world was made, but was shown in these last times for your sakes – ²¹ you who, by means of him, have believed on God, who raised him from death and glorified him so that your faith and hope may be in God.

²² And inasmuch as you have purified your souls through the Spirit, in the obedience of truth with brotherly love unfeigned, see that you love one another with a pure heart fervently. ²³ For you are born anew, not of mortal seed, but of immortal: by the word of God, which lives and lasts forever.

²⁴ For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man is as the flower of grass.  The grass withers, and the flower falls away, ²⁵ but the word of the Lord endures forever. And this is the word which by the gospel was preached among you.

He exhorts the people to lay aside all vice, shows that Christ is the foundation they have built upon, and prays them to abstain from fleshly lusts and to obey worldly rulers. How servants should conduct themselves toward their masters. He exhorts them to suffer after the example of Christ.

2 Therefore, lay aside all vice, and all guile and dissimulation and envy, and all backbiting.