You must continue to love Him, although you have never seen Him, but because you do believe in Him, although you do not now see Him, you must continue to rejoice with an unutterable and triumphant joy,

because you will receive the goal of your faith, the ultimate salvation of your souls.

for the Scripture says: "You ought to be holy, because I am holy."

because you know that you have not been ransomed with things that perish as silver or gold, from the futile way of living taught by your fathers,

because you have been born anew, not from a germ that perishes but from one that does not perish, by the word of the living and everlasting God.

It must be so, because the Scriptures say: "Here now I lay in Zion a chosen stone, a costly cornerstone, And not a single one who puts his trust in Him will ever be put to shame."

and: "A stone for them to stumble over and a rock to trip them up." They keep on stumbling over the message, because they are disobedient to it, and this is their appointed doom.

Dearly beloved, I beg you as aliens and exiles to keep on abstaining from the evil desires of your lower nature, because they are always at war with the soul.

Indeed, it was to this kind of living that you were called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example that you might follow His footsteps.

never returning evil for evil or abuse for abuse, but blessing instead, because it was for this that you were called, to obtain the blessing of heirs.

Because the eyes of the Lord are on upright men, and His ears listen to their pleading cries, but His face is against them that do wrong."

Above everything else keep your love for one another fervent, because love covers up a multitude of sins.

If you are suffering abuse because you bear the name of Christ, you are happy, because the glorious Spirit of God is resting upon you.

Because the time has come for judgment to begin at the household of God, and if it begins with us, what will the end be of those who are rejecting God's good news?

You younger men, on your part, must be submissive to the elders. And you must all put on the servant's apron of humility to one another, because God opposes the haughty but bestows His unmerited favor on the humble.

Cast every worry you have upon Him, because He cares for you.

Resist him and be strong in faith, because you know that your brotherhood all over the world is experiencing the same sort of sufferings.