He regarded abuse suffered for Christ to be greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for his eyes were fixed on the reward.

Endure your suffering as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is there that a father does not discipline?

By his sovereign plan he gave us birth through the message of truth, that we would be a kind of firstfruits of all he created.

For if someone comes into your assembly wearing a gold ring and fine clothing, and a poor person enters in filthy clothes,

But you have dishonored the poor! Are not the rich oppressing you and dragging you into the courts?

who by God’s power are protected through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

Concerning this salvation, the prophets who predicted the grace that would come to you searched and investigated carefully.

You have purified your souls by obeying the truth in order to show sincere mutual love. So love one another earnestly from a pure heart.

And yearn like newborn infants for pure, spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up to salvation,

and a stumbling-stone and a rock to trip over. They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do.

For in the same way the holy women who hoped in God long ago adorned themselves by being subject to their husbands,

For the eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous and his ears are open to their prayer. But the Lord’s face is against those who do evil.

who went into heaven and is at the right hand of God with angels and authorities and powers subject to him.

So they are astonished when you do not rush with them into the same flood of wickedness, and they vilify you.

Now it was for this very purpose that the gospel was preached to those who are now dead, so that though they were judged in the flesh by human standards they may live spiritually by God’s standards.

Just as each one has received a gift, use it to serve one another as good stewards of the varied grace of God.

For thus an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, will be richly provided for you.

– if so, then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from their trials, and to reserve the unrighteous for punishment at the day of judgment,

the Spirit and the water and the blood, and these three are in agreement.

because of the truth that resides in us and will be with us forever.