17. And if you call on the Father, who without respect of persons judges according to every man's work, pass the time of your exile here in fear:
18. Since you know that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain manner of life received by tradition from your fathers;
19. But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot:
20. Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you,
21. Who by him do believe in God, that raised him up from the dead, and gave him glory; that your faith and hope might be in God.
22. Seeing you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto sincere love of the brethren, see that you love one another with a pure heart fervently:
23. Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which lives and abides forever.
24. For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower thereof falls away:
25. But the word of the Lord endures forever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you.