1 Peter 2:1-12 - Chosen As Living Stones

¹ Free yourselves, therefore, from all malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of any kind, ² and like new-born babes crave the pure spiritual milk that will make you grow up to salvation, ³ since you have tasted the Lord's kindness. ⁴ Come to him, as to a living stone rejected by men, but chosen and prized in the sight of God, ⁵ and build yourselves up as living stones into a spiritual house for a consecrated priesthood, so as to offer spiritual sacrifices that through Jesus Christ will be acceptable to God. ⁶ For it says in Scripture, "Here I lay a choice stone in Zion, a costly cornerstone; No one who believes in it will ever be disappointed!"

⁷ It is you, therefore, who believe who see its value, but for men who do not believe, "The stone which the builders refused has been made a cornerstone,"

⁸ and "A stone to stumble over, and a rock to trip them up." They stumble over the message because they will not obey it; that is their destiny.

⁹ But you are the chosen race, the royal priesthood, the consecrated nation, his own people, so that you may declare the virtues of him who has called you out of darkness into his wonderful light; ¹⁰ you who were once "no people" but are now "God's people"; once "unpitied" but now "pitied indeed."

¹¹ Dear friends, I beg you, as aliens and exiles here, not to indulge the physical cravings that are at war with the soul. ¹² Live upright lives among the heathen, so that even if they charge you with being evil-doers, they may from observing the uprightness of your conduct come to praise God on the Day of Judgment.