given us the new Life of undying hope, that promises an inheritance, imperishable, stainless, unfading, which has been reserved for you in Heaven--

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.

For you know that it was not by perishable things, such as silver and gold, that you were Ransomed from the aimless way of living which was handed down to you from your ancestors,

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;

since your new Life has come, not from perishable, but imperishable, seed, through the Message of the Everliving God.

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

For there is a passage of Scripture that runs-- 'See, I am placing in Zion a choice and precious corner-stone; And he who believes in him shall have no cause for shame.'

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.

For Christ himself died to atone for sins once for all--the good on behalf of the bad--that he might bring you to God; his body being put to death, but his spirit entering upon new Life.

who once were disobedient, at the time when God patiently waited, in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared; in which some few lives, eight in all, were saved by means of water.

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.

No, the more you share the sufferings of the Christ, the more may you rejoice, that, when the time comes for the manifestation of his Glory, you may rejoice and exult.

I need hardly say that no one among you must suffer as a murderer, or a thief, or a criminal, or for interfering in matters which do not concern Christians.