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The Living Stone and a Chosen People

Rid yourselves, therefore, of all malice and all guile, insincerity, envy, and all slander.(A) Like newborn infants, long for the pure, spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow into salvation(B) if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.[a](C)

Come to him, a living stone, though rejected by mortals yet chosen and precious in God’s sight, and like living stones let yourselves be built[b] into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.(D) For it stands in scripture:

“See, I am laying in Zion a stone,
    a cornerstone chosen and precious,
and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.”(E)

This honor, then, is for you who believe, but for those who do not believe,[c]

“The stone that the builders rejected
    has become the very head of the corner,”(F)

and

“A stone that makes them stumble
    and a rock that makes them fall.”

They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do.(G)

But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people,[d] in order that you may proclaim the excellence of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.(H)

10 Once you were not a people,
    but now you are God’s people;
once you had not received mercy,
    but now you have received mercy.(I)

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Footnotes

  1. 2.3 Or kind
  2. 2.5 Or you yourselves are being built
  3. 2.7 Other ancient authorities read obey
  4. 2.9 Gk a people for his possession