Chosen as Living Stones

2 Therefore, ridding yourselves of all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander, 2 like newborn infants long for the unadulterated spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up to salvation, 3 if you have tasted that the Lord is kind,[fn] 4 to whom you are drawing near, a living stone rejected by men but chosen and precious in the sight of God. 5 And you yourselves, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. 6 For it stands in scripture,

• “Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a chosen and precious cornerstone,
• and the one who believes in him will never be put to shame.”[fn]

7 Therefore the honor is for you who believe, but for those who refuse to believe,

• “The stone that the builders rejected,
• this one has become the cornerstone[fn],”

8 and

• “A stone of stumbling and a rock of offense,”[fn]

who stumble because they[fn] disobey the word to which also they were consigned. 9 But you are a chosen race,[fn] a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s possession, so that you may proclaim the virtues of the one who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light, 10 who once were not a people, but now are the people of God, the ones who were not shown mercy, but now are shown mercy.[fn]

11 Dear friends, I urge you as foreigners and temporary residents to abstain from fleshly desires which wage war against your[fn] soul, 12 maintaining your good conduct among the Gentiles, so that in the things in which they slander you as evildoers, by seeing your good deeds they may glorify God on the day of visitation.