They tried to find out what era or specific time the Spirit of the Messiah in them kept referring to when he predicted the sufferings of the Messiah and the glories that would follow.

It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves but you in regard to the things that have now been announced to you by those who brought you the good news through the Holy Spirit sent from heaven. These are things that even the angels desire to look into.

If you call "Father" the one who judges everyone impartially according to what they have done, you must live in reverent fear as long as you are strangers in a strange land.

a stone they stumble over and a rock they trip on." They keep on stumbling because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do.

Continue to live such upright lives among the gentiles that, when they slander you as practicers of evil, they may see your good actions and glorify God when he visits them.

In a similar way, you wives must submit yourselves to your husbands so that, even if some of them refuse to obey the word, they may be won over without a word through your conduct as wives

when they see your pure and reverent lives.

After all, this is how holy women who set their hope on God used to make themselves beautiful in the past. They submitted themselves to their husbands,

They insult you now because they are surprised that you are no longer joining them in the same excesses of wild living.

They will give an account to the one who is ready to judge the living and the dead.

Indeed, this is why the gospel was proclaimed even to those who have died, so that they could be judged in their mortal flesh like all humans and live in the spiritual realm like God.