In which you rejoice, though now for a little while if need be made sad by manifold trials,

whom not having seen you love, in whom believing though now you see him not you rejoice with joy unspeakable and glorious,

to whom it was revealed that they ministered not to themselves but to us those things which have now been declared to you by those who preached to you the good news, with the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, into which the angels desire to look.

As obedient children, not conforming yourselves to the desires of your former ignorance,

knowing that you were not redeemed from your vain mode of life received by tradition from your fathers, with destructible things, silver or gold,

having been born again, not from destructible seed but from indestructible, through the word of God which lives and endures.

for it is said in the Scripture, Behold, I lay in Zion a chief corner stone, elect, precious, and he that believes on him shall not be ashamed.

who formerly were not a people, but now are a people of God, who had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy.

as free, and not using freedom for a cloak of vice, but as servants of God.

Let servants be subject with all fear to masters, not only to the good and gentle but also to the perverse.

who being reviled reviled not, suffering threatened not, but committed himself to him that judges righteously,

Whose ornament let it not be the external [ornament] of braided hair and the putting on of chains of gold or of clothing,

In like manner let the husbands [do], living together in knowledge with the wife as with a vessel of less strength, deeming them precious, co-heirs of the grace of life, that your prayers may not be hindered.

not returning evil for evil or railing for railing, but on the contrary blessing [your enemies], because to this you are called, that you may inherit blessing.

But even if you suffer on account of righteousness, you are blessed. But fear not with their fear, neither be troubled;

The archetype of which, baptism, also now saves us, not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience in God, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ,

in which they think it strange that you run not with them to the same excessive intemperance, blaspheming,

BELOVED, think not strange of the fiery trial which is to try you, as if some strange thing happened to you,

but as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, let him glorify God on this account.

For it is time for judgment to begin at the house of God; and if it first begins with us, what will the end be of those that obey not the gospel of God?

feed the flock of God which is among you, not by constraint but willingly, not for base gain but of a ready mind,

not as having a lordship over God's inheritance but being examples to the flock;