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

that the trial of your faith, which is much more precious than gold that is destroyed but proved by fire, may be found to praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ,

Concerning which salvation the prophets also who prophesied concerning the grace [bestowed] on us inquired diligently and sought,

inquiring as to what person or what time the Spirit of Christ which was in them signified, when it declared before the sufferings of Christ and after these the glories,

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.

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

To you therefore who believe he is precious; but to the disobedient, the stone which the builders rejected has become the head of a corner

and a stone of stumbling and rock of offense, who stumble at the word, being disobedient, to which also they were appointed.

BELOVED, I exhort you as strangers and foreigners, abstain from carnal desires, which war against the soul,

having your conduct honorable among the gentiles, that wherein they speak against you as evil-doers, from the good works which they see they may glorify God in the day of visitation,

but let the hidden man of the heart be adorned with the imperishable [ornaments] of a meek and quiet spirit, which are of great price before God.

in which also he went and preached to the spirits in prison,

who were formerly disobedient when the long suffering of God waited in the days of Noah while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is eight souls, were saved by water.

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,

If any one speaks, let him speak as the oracles of God, if any one serves, let it be as of the strength which God supplies, that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, whose is the glory and the power for ever and ever; amen.

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

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

I have written to you in a few words by Silvanus [Silas], a faithful brother as I suppose, exhorting you, and testifying that this is the true grace of God in which you stand.