It was made known to them that they were serving not themselves but you, in their searching for these things that have already been told to you by those who through the Holy Spirit sent from heaven brought you the good news. The angels long to take a peep into these things.

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.

But the word of the Lord lives on forever"; that is, the message of the good news which has been brought to you.

Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once His mercy had not been shown you, but now it has.

He bore our sins in His own body on the cross, that we might die to sin and live to uprightness. By His wounds you have been healed,

who had once been disobedient, while God's patience was awaiting in the days when Noah was preparing an ark, in which a few people-- eight, to be exact -- were brought safely through the water.