Study Desk

Come close to God and He will come close to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.

according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, by the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to obey Jesus Christ and be sprinkled with His blood: May grace and peace be multiplied to you.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,

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

who through Him are believers in God, who raised Him from the dead and gave Him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.

for you have been born again not of seed which is perishable, but imperishable, that is, through the living and enduring word of God.

And coming to Him as to a living stone which has been rejected by people, but is choice and precious in the sight of God,

you also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices that are acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

for you once were NOT A PEOPLE, but now you are THE PEOPLE OF GOD; you had NOT RECEIVED MERCY, but now you have RECEIVED MERCY.

Keep your behavior excellent among the Gentiles, so that in the thing in which they slander you as evildoers, they may because of your good deeds, as they observe them, glorify God on the day of visitation.

For such is the will of God, that by doing right you silence the ignorance of foolish people.

Act as free people, and do not use your freedom as a covering for evil, but use it as bond-servants of God.

Honor all people, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the king.

For this finds favor, if for the sake of conscience toward God a person endures grief when suffering unjustly.

For what credit is there if, when you sin and are harshly treated, you endure it with patience? But if when you do what is right and suffer for it you patiently endure it, this finds favor with God.

but it should be the hidden person of the heart, with the imperishable quality of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is precious in the sight of God.

For in this way the holy women of former times, who hoped in God, also used to adorn themselves, being subject to their own husbands,

For it is better, if God should will it so, that you suffer for doing what is right rather than for doing what is wrong.

For Christ also suffered for sins once for all time, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit;

who once were disobedient when the patience of God kept waiting in the days of Noah, during the construction of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through the water.