'Past' in the Bible

In the past you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; then there was no mercy for you, but now mercy has been given to you.

And these were the ornaments of the holy women of the past, whose hope was in God, being ruled by their husbands:

Because for long enough, in times past, we have been living after the way of the Gentiles, given up to the desires of the flesh, to drinking and feasting and loose behaviour and unclean worship of images;