CH. V.

Go to now, ye rich, weep, howling for your miseries that 2 are coming upon you. Your riches are corrupted, and 3 your garments are become moth-eaten, your gold and your silver are rusted, and the rust of them will be for a witness against you, and will eat your flesh as fire. Ye 4 treasured up in the last days. Behold, the hire of the labourers who mowed your fields, which has been kept back, cries from you: and the shouts of them that reaped 5 have entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth. Ye lived in luxury on the earth, and were wanton; ye nourished 6 your hearts in a day of slaughter. Ye condemned, ye killed the righteous one; he does not resist you.

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Be longsuffering therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being longsuffering over it, 8 till it receive the early and latter rain; be ye also longsuffering, establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord 9 is nigh. Murmur not one against another, brethren, that ye be not judged: behold, the judge stands before the doors. 10 Take, brethren, as an example of affliction and of long

suffering the prophets that spake in the name of the 11 Lord. Behold, we count them blessed that endured; ye heard of the patience of Job, and saw the end of the Lord, that the Lord is very compassionate and merciful.

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But above all things, my brethren, swear not, neither by the heaven, nor by the earth, nor by any other oath: but let your yea be yea, and your nay, nay, that ye fall not under judgment.

13 Is any among you afflicted? let him pray. Is any of 14 good cheer? let him sing praise. Is any sick among you?

let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, when they have anointed him with oil in the 15 name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the weary one, and the Lord will raise him up; and if he 16 have done sins, he shall be forgiven. Confess therefore your sins one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be cured; the supplication of a righteous man 17 is of much force when it is working. Elijah was a man

of like passions with us, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain, it rained not on the earth for three years and six months; and he prayed again, and the heaven gave 18 rain, and the earth brought forth its fruit.

My brethren, if any one among you have erred from the 19 truth and one have converted him, let him know that he 20 who converted a sinner from the error of his way will save his soul from death, and will cover a multitude of sins.

OF PETER FIRST.

PETER, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the elect sojourners CH. I. of the dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia, according to the foreknowledge of God the 2 Father, in sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ. Grace unto you and peace be multiplied.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus 3 Christ, who according to his abundant mercy begat us again unto a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and 4 undefiled and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who are 5 guarded by God's power through faith unto salvation. ready to be revealed in the last time. Wherein ye exult, 6 though now for a little, if need be, made sorrowful in divers temptations; that the proving of your faith, being 7 much more precious than gold that perishes yet is proved with fire, may be found unto praise and glory and honour at the revelation of Jesus Christ; whom having not 8 seen, ye love, in whom, though now ye see him not, believing, ye exult with joy unspeakable and glorified: receiving the end of your faith, salvation of souls. Con- 9, 10 cerning which salvation prophets inquired and searched

diligently, they who prophesied of the grace appointed 11 for you; searching as to what or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ in them was signifying, when testifying beforehand the sufferings respecting Christ, and the 12 glories after them; unto whom it was revealed, that not unto themselves, but unto you they were ministering the very things which have now been reported unto you by them that preached the gospel unto you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven; into which things angels desire to look. Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, being sober, hope perfectly for the grace that is being brought unto you 14 at the revelation of Jesus Christ. As children of obedience, not conforming yourselves to the lusts which were before 15 in your ignorance, but according to the holy one that 16 called you, be yourselves also holy in all conduct, because 17 it is written, Ye shall be holy, because I am holy. And if

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ye call on him as a Father, who without respect of persons judges according to every man's work, pass the time of 18 your sojourning in fear; knowing that not with corruptible things, silver or gold, were ye redeemed from your vain 19 conduct received by tradition from your fathers; but with precious blood as of a lamb without blemish and without 20 spot, the blood of Christ, foreknown before the foundation of the world, but manifested at the last of the times for 21 you, who are through him believers in God that raised him from the dead, and gave him glory; so that your faith and hope are in God.

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Seeing ye have purified your souls in the obedience of the truth unto unfeigned brotherly love, love one an23 other from the heart earnestly; having been born again, not of corruptible seed but of incorruptible, through the 24 word of God, which lives and abides. Because All flesh is as grass, and all the glory of it as a flower of grass; the 25 grass withered, and the flower fell away: but the word of the Lord abides for ever. And this is the word which was preached unto you.

CH. II.

WHEREFORE having put off all viciousness, and all guile, 2 and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings, as

newborn babes, long for the reasonable guileless milk, that ye may grow thereby unto salvation, if ye tasted that the 3 Lord is good. To whom drawing near, a living stone, 4 rejected indeed by men, but elect with God, had in honour, be ye also yourselves as living stones built up a spiritual 5 house, for an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. Because it is 6 contained in scripture, Behold, I lay in Sion a chief corner stone, elect, had in honour; and he that believes on him shall not be put to shame. Unto you therefore who believe is the 7 honour but unto them who do not believe, The stone which the builders rejected, the same was made the head of the corner, and a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence, to them who 8 stumble inasmuch as they believe not the word; whereunto also they were appointed. But ye are an elect generation, 9 a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a people for a possession; that ye should shew forth the virtues of him who called you out of darkness into his marvellous light: who 10 in time past were no people, but are now a people of God; who had not found mercy, but now did find mercy.

Beloved, I exhort you as foreigners and sojourners to 11 abstain from the carnal lusts which war against the soul; having your conduct good among the Gentiles, that wherein 12 they speak against you as evildoers, they may in consequence of the good works, contemplating them, glorify God in the day of visitation.

Be subject to every ordinance of man for the Lord's 13 sake; whether to the king, as supreme; or unto governors, 14 as sent by him for vengeance on evildoers and praise to welldoers; for so is the will of God, that with well 15 doing ye put to silence the ignorance of the foolish men: as free, and not having the freedom as a cloke of vicious- 16 ness, but as servants of God. Honour all, love the 17 brotherhood, fear God, honour the king. Ye servants, be 18 subject to your masters in all fear; not only to the good and forbearing, but also to the perverse. For this is thank- 19 worthy, if one for conscience toward God endures sorrows, though suffering unjustly. For what glory is it, if, sinning 20

and buffeted, ye shall endure? but if doing well and suffer21 ing, ye shall endure, this is thankworthy with God. For hereunto ye were called; because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you a pattern, that ye should follow his steps; 22, 23 who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth; who, when reviled, reviled not again, when suffering, threatened not, but delivered himself up to him that judges right24 eously; who himself bear our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, who renounced sins, should live unto 25 righteousness, by whose stripes ye were healed. For ye

were going astray as sheep, but are now returned unto the shepherd and bishop of your souls.

CH. III. IN like manner, ye wives, be subject to your own husbands; that, even if any believe not the word, they may 2 without the word be won by the conduct of the wives; having 3 contemplated your chaste conduct in fear. Whose adorning let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel, 4 but the hidden man of the heart, in the incorruptibleness of the meek and quiet spirit, which is before God of great 5 price. For so formerly did the holy women also, who hoped in God, adorn themselves, being subject unto their own 6 husbands; as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord; whose children ye became, doing well and not fearing any 7 sudden alarm. Ye husbands, in like manner, dwell according to knowledge with the woman as the weaker vessel, giving them honour as being also fellow-heirs of the grace of life, that your prayers be not hindered.

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Finally, be ye all of one mind, sympathetic, loving 9 the brethren, tender-hearted, humble-minded, not rendering evil for evil, or reviling for reviling, but contrariwise blessing; because ye were thereunto called, that ye should 10 inherit a blessing. For he that desires to love life and see

good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil and lips from 11 speaking guile; let him turn away from evil and do good ; 12 let him seek peace and pursue it, for the eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, and his ears are unto their supplication; but the face of the Lord is upon them that do evil.