God

This is why the Tanakh says, “Look! I am laying in Tziyon a stone, a chosen and precious cornerstone; and whoever rests his trust on it will certainly not be humiliated.”

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.

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.

For the sake of the Lord, submit yourselves to every human authority — whether to the emperor as being supreme,

For it is God’s will that your doing good should silence the ignorant talk of foolish people.

Submit as people who are free, but not letting your freedom serve as an excuse for evil; rather, submit as God’s slaves.

Be respectful to all — keep loving the brotherhood, fearing God and honoring the emperor.

For it is a grace when someone, because he is mindful of God, bears up under the pain of undeserved punishment.

For what credit is there in bearing up under a beating you deserve for doing something wrong? But if you bear up under punishment, even though you have done what is right, God looks on it with favor.

rather, let it be the inner character of your heart, with the imperishable quality of a gentle and quiet spirit. In God’s sight this is of great value.

This is how the holy women of the past who put their hope in God used to adorn themselves and submit to their husbands,

but treat the Messiah as holy, as Lord in your hearts; while remaining always ready to give a reasoned answer to anyone who asks you to explain the hope you have in you — yet with humility and fear,

For if God has in fact willed that you should suffer, it is better that you suffer for doing what is good than for doing what is evil.

For the Messiah himself died for sins, once and for all, a righteous person on behalf of unrighteous people, so that he might bring you to God. He was put to death in the flesh but brought to life by the Spirit;

to those who were disobedient long ago, in the days of Noach, when God waited patiently during the building of the ark, in which a few people — to be specific, eight — were delivered by means of water.

This also prefigures what delivers us now, the water of immersion, which is not the removal of dirt from the body, but one’s pledge to keep a good conscience toward God, through the resurrection of Yeshua the Messiah.

He has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities and powers subject to him.

with the result that he lives the rest of his earthly life no longer controlled by human desires, but by God’s will.

This is why he was proclaimed to those who have died; it was so that, although physically they would receive the judgment common to all humanity, they might live by the Spirit in the way that God has provided.

As each one has received some spiritual gift, he should use it to serve others, like good managers of God’s many-sided grace —

if someone speaks, let him speak God’s words; if someone serves, let him do so out of strength that God supplies; so that in everything God may be glorified through Yeshua the Messiah — to him be glory and power forever and ever. Amen.

Rather, to the extent that you share the fellowship of the Messiah’s sufferings, rejoice; so that you will rejoice even more when his Sh’khinah is revealed.

If you are being insulted because you bear the name of the Messiah, how blessed you are! For the Spirit of the Sh’khinah, that is, the Spirit of God, is resting on you!

But if anyone suffers for being Messianic, let him not be ashamed; but let him bring glory to God by the way he bears this name.

For the time has come for the judgment to begin. It begins with the household of God; and if it starts with us, what will the outcome be for those who are disobeying God’s Good News? —