2 You used to be dead because of your sins and acts of disobedience. ² You walked in the ways of the ‘olam hazeh and obeyed the Ruler of the Powers of the Air, who is still at work among the disobedient. ³ Indeed, we all once lived this way — we followed the passions of our old nature and obeyed the wishes of our old nature and our own thoughts. In our natural condition we were headed for God’s wrath, just like everyone else.

¹¹ Therefore, remember your former state: you Gentiles by birth — called the Uncircumcised by those who, merely because of an operation on their flesh, are called the Circumcised — ¹² at that time had no Messiah. You were estranged from the national life of Isra’el. You were foreigners to the covenants embodying God’s promise. You were in this world without hope and without God.

¹³ But now, you who were once far off have been brought near through the shedding of the Messiah’s blood. ¹⁴ For he himself is our shalom — he has made us both one and has broken down the m’chitzah which divided us ¹⁵ by destroying in his own body the enmity occasioned by the Torah, with its commands set forth in the form of ordinances. He did this in order to create in union with himself from the two groups a single new humanity and thus make shalom, ¹⁶ and in order to reconcile to God both in a single body by being executed on a stake as a criminal and thus in himself killing that enmity.

2 Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice, of all deceit, hypocrisy and envy, and of all the ways there are of speaking against people; ² and be like newborn babies, thirsty for the pure milk of the Word; so that by it, you may grow up into deliverance. ³ For you have tasted that Adonai is good.^[a]

⁴ As you come to him, the living stone, rejected by people but chosen by God and precious to him, ⁵ you yourselves, as living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be cohanim set apart for God to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to him through Yeshua the Messiah. ⁶ This is why the Tanakh says,

⁷ Now to you who keep trusting, he is precious. But to those who are not trusting,

⁸ also he is

They are stumbling at the Word, disobeying it — as had been planned. ⁹ But you are a chosen people,^[e] the King’s cohanim,^[f] a holy nation,^[g] a people for God to possess!^[h] Why? In order for you to declare the praises of the One who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. ¹⁰ Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; before, you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.^[i]

¹¹ Dear friends, I urge you as aliens and temporary residents^[j] not to give in to the desires of your old nature, which keep warring against you; ¹² but to live such good lives among the pagans that even though they now speak against you as evil-doers, they will, as a result of seeing your good actions, give glory to God on the Day of his coming. ¹³ For the sake of the Lord, submit yourselves to every human authority — whether to the emperor as being supreme,