1 Peter, apostle of Jesus Christ, to the chosen who live as exiles scattered through Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia,
2 chosen in keeping with the foreknowledge of God the Father, by the sanctifying of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood: may grace and peace be yours in abundance.
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who out of his great mercy has begotten us again for a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from among the dead,
4 for an inheritance incorruptible, unstained and unfading, held in keeping in the heavens for you,
5 who are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation prepared to be disclosed in the last season.
6 In this you are glad with great gladness, even if now, for a short while and as need may be, you have been made to grieve by many-sided trials,
7 so that your faith, once proved—a thing much more costly than gold that perishes, though gold too is proved by fire—may be found to your praise and honor and glory at the unveiling of Jesus Christ.
8 Not having seen him, you love him; and in him, though you do not see him at present, you trust and leap for joy with a gladness too deep for speech and glorified,
9 as you carry off the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.
10 It was about this salvation that the prophets made careful search and investigation, they who prophesied about the grace that was to come to you,
11 inquiring what time or what sort of season the Spirit of Christ within them was indicating when he foretold the sufferings destined for Christ and the glories after them.
12 To them it was disclosed that it was not for their own sake but for ours that they were handling the things now reported to you by those who proclaimed the gospel to you with the Holy Spirit sent forth from heaven—things the angels yearn to stoop and look into.
13 So, with the loins of your mind girded up and staying sober, put your hope completely on the grace being brought to you when Jesus Christ is revealed.
14 Like children of obedience, do not mold yourselves to the desires that ruled you earlier in your ignorance,
15 but after the pattern of the Holy One who called you, become holy yourselves in every part of your behavior,
16 for it is written, "Be holy, for I am holy."
17 And if you address as Father the one who judges each one's work without favoritism, spend the time of your sojourn in reverent fear,
18 aware that it was not with things that decay, silver or gold, that you were set free from the empty manner of life passed down from your fathers,
19 but by the costly blood of Christ, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless.
20 He was marked out beforehand before the world was founded, but has appeared in these last times on your account,
21 who by him have come to believe in God, who raised him from among the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope might be fixed on God.
22 Now that you have purified your souls in obedience to the truth through the Spirit, resulting in unfeigned love for the brothers, love one another intensely, from a clean heart,
23 having been begotten again not from seed that perishes but from seed that does not, through the word of God, which lives and abides forever.
24 Because all flesh is as grass, and all man's glory as the bloom of grass. The grass has withered, and its bloom has fallen away,
25 but the word of the Lord abides forever. And this is the word that was announced to you as good news.