1 Peter 2:1-12 - Chosen As Living Stones
1 So off with all malice, all guile and insincerity and envy and slander of every kind! 2 Like newly-born children, thirst for the pure, spiritual milk to make you grow up to salvation. 3 You have had a taste of the kindness of the Lord: 4 come to him then ??come to that living Stone which men have rejected and God holds choice and precious, 5 come and, like living stones yourselves, be built into a spiritual house, to form a consecrated priesthood for the offering of those spiritual sacrifices that are acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. 6 For thus it stands in the scripture: Here I lay a Stone in Sion, a choice, a precious cornerstone: he who believes in him will never be disappointed.
7 Now you believe, you hold him 'precious,' but as for the unbelieving ??the very stone the builders rejected is now the cornerstone,
8 a stone over which men stumble and a rock of offence; they stumble over it in their disobedience to God's word. Such is their appointed doom.
9 But you are the elect race, the royal priesthood, the consecrated nation, the People who belong to Him, that you may proclaim the wondrous deeds of Him who has called you from darkness to his wonderful light ??10 you who once were no people and now are God's people, you who once were unpitied and now are pitied.
11 Beloved, as sojourners and exiles I appeal to you to abstain from the passions of the flesh that wage war upon the soul. 12 Conduct yourselves properly before pagans; so that for all their slander of you as bad characters, they may come to glorify God when you are put upon your trial, by what they see of your good deeds.