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2 Because these things are true, do not act wickedly or deceive others in any way. Do not be hypocrites, and do not envy others. Do not speak evil things falsely about anyone. 2 Just as newborn babies strongly desire their mothers’ pure milk, so you should strongly desire to learn true things about God so that by learning them you may become spiritually mature. You must do this until the time when God saves you completely from this sinful world. 3 You must do this because you have experienced that the Lord acts very kindly toward you.
4 You have come to the Lord Jesus. He is like a stone that is part of a building, but he is alive. Although people rejected him, God chose him and greatly values him. 5 And you are like stones that are alive. Like men build houses with stones, God is joining you together like a building in which his Spirit dwells. He is also making you be like priests whom he has set apart in order to do spiritual acts, pleasing to God, by means of Jesus the Messiah. 6 What Isaiah wrote that God had said in Scripture shows us that this is true: “Pay attention! I am placing in Jerusalem someone who is like the most important stone in the building. I have chosen him. He is very valuable. And anyone who trusts in him will surely never be humiliated.”
7 Therefore, God will honor you who believe in Jesus. However, those who refuse to believe in him are like the builders that someone wrote about in the Psalms: “The stone that the builders rejected has become the most important stone in the building.”
8 Isaiah also wrote in the Scriptures that the Messiah would be like
“a stone that causes people to stumble,
and a rock that offends people.”
Just as people become injured because they trip over a rock,
people become offended because they disobey God’s message;
that is what God determined would happen to them.
9 In contrast to them, you believers are people whom God has chosen for himself. You are like a group of priests who worship God and rule with him. You are a people group that God has set apart for himself. You are a people who belong to God so that you might declare the praiseworthy things he has done. He has called you out of your former manner of living, when you were sinful and ignorant about God, and he has made you understand the wonderful true things about himself. 10 What Hosea wrote is true about you who used to be “no people group at all,” but now are “God’s people group.” At one time “God had not acted mercifully toward you,” but now “he has acted mercifully toward you.”
11 Fellow believers whom I love, you are like foreigners whose real home is in heaven. So I urge you not to do the things that your sinful human natures want to do. Those desires will destroy you. 12 Behave well among those who do not know God in order that, concerning the things you are doing, which they falsely say are evil, they will see that you are actually doing good things and they will honor God when he comes to judge everyone.
13 In order to honor the Lord Jesus, obey everyone who has power to govern people. This includes the king, because he has the greatest human power. 14 It also includes governors, because the king has sent them to punish those who do evil things and to praise those who do good things. 15 Obey those who govern people, because this is what God wants: He wants you to do good things in order to stop fools who do not know God from being able to ignorantly say that you have done evil things. 16 Obey those who govern people as people who are free to do so voluntarily, but do not try to use your status as free people to hide evil deeds. Instead, obey as those who serve God should. 17 Be respectful to everyone. Love all your fellow believers. Revere God. Be respectful to the king.
18 You household slaves who are believers, submit to your masters with a completely reverent attitude. Do this not only to those masters who act very kindly toward you but also to those who act unjustly toward you. 19 Submit to your masters, because this is something that God prefers—if someone endures hardships and suffers undeservedly because that person is aware of who God is and what he wants. 20 Submit to your masters, because there is certainly no honor for you if you endure when someone beats you because you have sinned. However, this is something that God favors: if you endure when you suffer even though you did what is good. 21 God favors this because he has called you to suffer while doing what is good. He has called you to this because the Messiah also suffered for your sake in order to be an example for you with the purpose that you would imitate what he did.
22 “He never sinned.
And he never said anything to deceive people.”
23 When people insulted him, he never insulted them in return.
When he suffered, he never threatened those who caused him to suffer.
Instead, he trusted God, who always judges rightly, to prove that he was innocent.
24 The Messiah himself was punished for our sins in his body when he died on the cross with the purpose that we would live rightly because we are no longer controlled by sin.
God has healed you because people wounded the Messiah. 25 God healed you because you were alienated from God like sheep that had become lost, but now God has brought you back to Jesus, who cares for you and watches over you as a shepherd cares for his sheep.