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“You, Likewise, Must Arm Yourselves with the Same Resolve”
1 Since the Messiah, therefore, suffered while in his weak and mortal body, you, likewise, must arm yourselves with the same resolve (a person who has suffered in the mortal body, you see, is finished with sin),
2 so that you may live out the remainder indeed of your own time in weak and mortal bodies, no longer by the evil desires of mankind, but by the will and desires of God.
3 For you have already wasted far too much time doing what the Gentiles like to do, when your lives were overrun with licentious behaviors, evil desires, drunkenness, orgies, wild parties and drinking bouts, and the detestable practices tied to idolatry.
4 In regard to these, they are shocked that you refuse to plunge with them into the same flood of wild and reckless living, and so they slander you.
5 They will have to give an account to the one who is ready to judge the living and the dead.
6 Indeed, this is why the gospel was proclaimed, too, to those who have since died: Even though they were sentenced to die like the rest of mankind in weak and mortal bodies, they are going to come back to life in the likeness of God clothed in the glory of the Spirit.
“The Culmination of All Things Is Drawing Near!”
7 The culmination of all things is drawing near! Therefore, be sober-minded and self-controlled so that you can pray as you should,
8 above all else, in regard to your love for one another, making sure to keep it earnest and constant, because “love covers a multitude of sins”;+
9 showing hospitality to one another without complaining;
10 each person, to the degree that one has received a gift, using it to serve others, as stewards who handle blamelessly the gracious activity of God in all its many different colors;
11 if someone speaks, in a manner befitting the oracles of God; if someone serves, as by the strength that God provides; so that God may be glorified through Jesus the Messiah in all things. To him belong the glory and the supremacy forever into the ages of the ages. Amen.
“Dear Friends, Don’t Be Shocked at the Refining Fires”
12 Dear friends, don’t be shocked at the refining fires sent among you to put you to the test, as though it were something unusual that were happening to you,
13 but rather, to the degree that you are sharing in the sufferings of the Messiah, rejoice, so that you may rejoice, too, when his glory is revealed, and shout for joy.
14 If you are insulted because of the name of the Messiah, you are blessed, because it means that God’s glorious Spirit is with you.
15 Again, if any of you suffer, it must not be as a murderer or thief or evildoer or as a troublemaker.
16 If someone suffers as a follower of the Messiah, however, he must not consider it a shame, but is to glorify God for the honor of bearing this name.
17 For the time has come for judgment to begin with the household of God, and if even we ourselves don’t escape suffering, how much more severe will the judgment be for those who refuse to obey the very gospel of God?
18 Indeed,
“If the righteous are saved just barely,
then as for godless sinners, what will become of them?”+
19 So then, those who suffer according to the will of God: It is to a faithful Creator that they must also entrust themselves, as they continue to do what is good.