Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

Transformed living

4 So, then, just as the Messiah suffered in the flesh, you too must equip yourselves with the same mental armor. Someone who suffers in the flesh has ceased from sin, ² so as to live the rest of their mortal life no longer according to human desires but according to God’s will. ³ Pagan ways of life have had quite enough of your time already, and you should put all that behind you for good—all that uncleanness, passion, drunkenness, excessive feasting, drinking-parties and lawless idolatry. ⁴ People are shocked that you don’t now join in with the same wild and reckless behavior, and so they call down curses on you. ⁵ But they will have to account for it before the one who is ready to judge the living and the dead. ⁶ That is why, you see, the gospel was preached even to the dead, so that, being judged in human fashion, in the flesh, they might live in God’s fashion, in the spirit.