2. Like newborn infants, desire the milk of reasonableness without guile, so that by this you may increase unto salvation,
3. if it is true that you have tasted that the Lord is sweet.
4. And approaching him as if he were a living stone, rejected by men, certainly, but elect and honored by God,
5. be also yourselves like living stones, built upon him, a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, so as to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
6. Because of this, Scripture asserts: "Behold, I am setting in Zion a chief cornerstone, elect, precious. And whoever will have believed in him will not be confounded."
7. Therefore, to you who believe, he is honor. But to those who do not believe, the stone which the builders have rejected, the same has been made into the head of the corner,
8. and a stone of offense, and a rock of scandal, to those who are offended by the Word; neither do they believe, though they also have been built upon him.
9. But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, an acquired people, so that you may announce the virtues of him who has called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
10. Though in past times you were not a people, yet now you are the people of God. Though you had not obtained mercy, yet now you have obtained mercy.
11. Most beloved, I beg you, as new arrivals and sojourners, to abstain from carnal desires, which battle against the soul.
12. Keep your behavior among the Gentiles to what is good, so that, when they slander you as if you were evildoers, they may, by the good works that are seen in you, glorify God on the day of visitation.
13. Therefore, be subject to every human creature because of God, whether it is to the king as preeminent,
14. or to leaders as having been sent from him for vindication over evildoers, it is truly for the praise of what is good.
15. For such is the will of God, that by doing good you may bring about the silence of imprudent and ignorant men,
16. in an open manner, and not as if cloaking malice with liberty, but like servants of God.