Checking the Health of the Church

1 Peter 2:1–10

A Living Stone and a Holy People

1 So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander. 2 Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation—3 if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.

4 As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, 5 you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. 6 For it stands in Scripture:

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

7 So the honor is for you who believe, but for those who do not believe,

  “The stone that the builders rejected
    has become the cornerstone,”¹

8 and

  “A stone of stumbling,
    and a rock of offense.”

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

9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. 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.

(ESV)