I thank God for his salvation through Jesus Christ our Lord! So in my mind I am a slave to God’s law, but in my sinful self I am a slave to the law of sin.
You also are like living stones, and God is using you to build a spiritual house. You are to serve God in this house as holy priests, offering him spiritual sacrifices that he will accept because of Jesus Christ.
But you are his chosen people, the King’s priests. You are a holy nation, people who belong to God. He chose you to tell about the wonderful things he has done. He brought you out of the darkness of sin into his wonderful light.
But we are the ones who have the true circumcision—we who worship God through his Spirit. We don’t trust in ourselves or anything we can do. We take pride only in Christ Jesus.
You will tell the prisoners, ‘Come out of your prison!’ You will tell those who are in darkness, ‘Come out of the dark!’ The people will eat along the road, and they will have food even on empty hills.