¹⁷ If you call “Father” the one who judges everyone impartially according to what they have done, you must live in reverent fear as long as you are strangers in a strange land. ¹⁸ For you know that it was not with perishable things like silver or gold that you have been ransomed from the worthless way of life handed down to you by your ancestors, ¹⁹ but with the precious blood of the Messiah,^[a] like that of a lamb without blemish or defect.