“Listen, you priests—this command is for you!
Don’t point your finger at someone else and try to pass the blame! My complaint, you priests, is with you.
And why worry about a speck in your friend’s eye when you have a log in your own?
Examine yourselves to see if your faith is genuine. Test yourselves. Surely you know that Jesus Christ is among you; if not, you have failed the test of genuine faith.
By His divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life. We have received all of this by coming to know Him, the one who called us to Himself by means of His marvelous glory and excellence. And because of His glory and excellence, He has given us great and precious promises. These are the promises that enable you to share His divine nature and escape the world’s corruption caused by human desires.
In view of all this, make every effort to respond to God’s promises. Supplement your faith with a generous provision of moral excellence, and moral excellence with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with patient endurance, and patient endurance with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love for everyone.
The more you grow like this, the more productive and useful you will be in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
The words of a priest’s lips should preserve knowledge of God, and people should go to him for instruction, for the priest is the messenger of the Lord of Heaven’s Armies.
So, dear brothers and sisters, work hard to prove that you really are among those God has called and chosen. Do these things, and you will never fall away. Then God will give you a grand entrance into the eternal Kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
He has made us a Kingdom of priests for God his Father. All glory and power to him forever and ever! Amen.”
{Malachi 2:1; Hosea 4:4; Matthew 7:3; 2 Corinthians 13:5; 2 Peter 1:3-8; Malachi 2:7; 2 Peter 1:10-11; Revelation 1:6}