For it is no idle word for you, because it is your life, and by this word you will prolong your days in the land which you cross over the Jordan to possess.”
For this reason we thank God without ceasing, because when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you received it not as the word of men, but as it truly is, the word of God, which effectively works also in you who believe.
Do not be carried away with diverse and strange teachings. It is a good thing that the heart be strengthened with grace, not with foods, which have not profited those who have been occupied with them.
For the word of God is alive, and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intents of the heart.
For Christ also has once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but made alive by the Spirit,
Figuratively this is like baptism, which also saves us now. It is not washing off the dirt from the body, but a response to God from a good conscience through the resurrection of Jesus Christ,