Though you have never seen him, yet you love him; though you do not even now see him, yet you believe in him, and exalt with a triumphant happiness too great for words,

And it was revealed to them that it was not for themselves, but for you, that they were acting as Ministers of the truths which have now been told to you, by those who, with the help of the Holy Spirit sent from Heaven, have brought you the Good News--truths into which even angels long to look.

who, through him, are faithful to God who raised him from the dead and gave him honour, so that your faith and hope are now in God.

Now that, by your obedience to the Truth, you have purified your lives, so that there is growing up among you a genuine brotherly affection, love one another earnestly with all your hearts;

Now that you have done with all malice, all deceitfulness, insincerity, jealous feelings, and all back-biting,

It is to you, then, who believe in him that he is precious, but to those who do not believe he is 'a stone which, though rejected by the builders, has now itself become the corner-stone,'

Once you were 'not a people,' but now you are 'God's People'; once you 'had not found mercy,' but now you 'have found mercy.'

Once you were straying like sheep, but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Guardian of your souls.

And baptism, which this foreshadowed, now saves you--not the mere cleansing of the body, but the search of a clear conscience after God--through the resurrection of Jesus Christ,

who has gone into Heaven, and is at God's right hand, where Angels and Archangels and the Powers of Heaven now yield submission to him.