1 Peter 1:13–2:3

A Call to Holy Living

¹³So prepare your minds for service and have self-control. All your hope should be for the gift of grace that will be yours when Jesus Christ is shown to you. ¹⁴Now that you are obedient children of God do not live as you did in the past. You did not understand, so you did the evil things you wanted. ¹⁵But be holy in all you do, just as God, the One who called you, is holy. ¹⁶It is written in the Scriptures: “You must be holy, because I am holy.” ⁿ

¹⁷You pray to God and call him Father, and he judges each person’s work equally. So while you are here on earth, you should live with respect for God. ¹⁸You know that in the past you were living in a worthless way, a way passed down from the people who lived before you. But you were saved from that useless life. You were bought, not with something that ruins like gold or silver, ¹⁹but with the precious blood of Christ, who was like a pure and perfect lamb. ²⁰Christ was chosen before the world was made, but he was shown to the world in these last times for your sake. ²¹Through Christ you believe in God, who raised Christ from the dead and gave him glory. So your faith and your hope are in God.

²²Now that your obedience to the truth has purified your souls, you can have true love for your Christian brothers and sisters. So love each other deeply with all your heart.^{n 23}You have been born again, and this new life did not come from something that dies, but from something that cannot die. You were born again through God’s living message that continues forever. ²⁴The Scripture says,

“All people are like the grass,

and all their glory is like the flowers of the field.

The grass dies and the flowers fall,

²⁵but the word of the Lord will live forever.”

And this is the word that was preached to you.

Jesus Is the Living Stone

2So then, rid yourselves of all evil, all lying, hypocrisy, jealousy, and evil speech. ²As newborn babies want milk, you should want the pure and simple teaching. By it you can mature in your salvation, ³because you have already examined and seen how good the Lord is.