Translation of 1 Peter
Translation of 1 Peter
Part of my strategy in this translation is to experiment with ways to articulate the text that often differ from standard translations, simply to provide a complementary perspective on texts that may seem too familiar to some readers. Thus I have used simpler language in many texts but have made some others less readable in an effort to bring out nuances often missed. All translations involve compromises, obscuring some nuances in the effort to highlight others. Thus this translation is designed to work for this commentary, not as a typical translation.
From Peter to God’s Chosen in Asia Minor
1:1
From: Peter, a commissioned agent of Jesus Christ.
1:2
chosen, indeed, because God the Father foreknew you. Your chosenness is evident by God’s Spirit consecrating you so you can obey and be sprinkled by Jesus Christ’s blood. May God cause his grace and peace to abound in your lives!
Assured of Future Salvation
1:3
God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ deserves all praise! By his abundant mercy he birthed us anew. This new birth brings us into a living expectation—an expectation that is living through Jesus Christ’s resurrection from among the dead.
1:4
This new birth thus also brings us into an inheritance that will never perish, is undefiled, and will never fade. It’s guarded in the heavens for you.
1:5
It’s guarded for you who, by God’s power and through your loyal trust, are guarded for the salvation that’s ready to be revealed in the last time.
1:6
1:7
These testings are meant to prove the genuineness of your trust in God. Even though fire proves the genuineness of gold, gold is perishable. But your trust in God is worth far more than gold. The result of such unalloyed trust in God will be praise, glory, and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed!
1:8
Though you haven’t seen him yet, you love him. Thus, though you don’t see him now, you trust him and celebrate with inexpressible and glory-filled joy.
1:9
Thus you are receiving the outcome of your trust in God: your ultimate salvation.
More Than the Prophets Knew
1:10
The prophets tried hard to learn more about this salvation, searching carefully. These prophets prophesied about the grace that you would experience.
1:11
They were trying to understand what person or what sort of time the Spirit of Christ within them was announcing as this Spirit was testifying in advance about Christ’s sufferings and subsequent glory.
1:12
It was revealed to them that they weren’t serving themselves, but you. These matters that they once announced are the same good news now brought to you by those who preached it. They did so by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven. These are matters that angels want to investigate!
Live Wholly for God
1:13
In light of this, keep your minds ready and disciplined! Stake all your future expectation on the grace that you’ll receive when Jesus Christ is revealed.
1:14
Like obedient children, don’t follow the pattern of the passions you used to indulge when you were ignorant.
1:15
Instead, in all your behavior be consecrated as holy to God, just as the one who called you is holy.
1:16
Do this because the Bible says, “You shall be consecrated to me as holy, because I am holy.”
Ransomed from the World by the Precious Lamb
1:17
If you call on the Father who fairly judges the actions of each individual, behave with reverence during your stint as resident foreigners in this world.
1:18
Do this because you know how you were ransomed from the empty way of behavior passed down from your ancestors. You weren’t ransomed with perishable things such as silver or gold.
1:19
Instead, you were ransomed at the cost of Christ’s priceless blood. He was like an unblemished, ritually acceptable lamb.
1:20
Christ was known before the world’s beginning, but he was revealed for your sake at the end of the eras of this age.
1:21
Transformed by God’s Eternal Message
1:22
You purified your souls by obeying the truth, so as to sincerely love the rest of God’s family. So always love each other from the bottom of your hearts!
1:23
Love like this because you have been reborn. This rebirth comes not from perishable seed but from imperishable. The seed it comes from is God’s living and enduring message.
1:24
We recognize this because the Bible says, “Everyone is like grass, and all their glory is like a blossom of grass. The grass dries up, and the blossom falls off,
1:25
but the Lord’s message endures forever.” This message is the message that was preached as the good news to you.
2:1
So lay aside every kind of evil and every kind of deceit, acts of hypocrisy and envy, and all slanders.
2:2
And like just-born babies, crave the pure, mind-engaging milk, so that by it you may grow toward salvation,
2:3
if you’ve tasted that the Lord is kind.
Chosen Foundation for a Chosen People
2:4
That’s the Lord to whom you come: a living stone rejected as unfit by people, but chosen by God as priceless.
2:5
In the same way, as living stones, you’re being built as a spiritual house, for a consecrated community of priests that offers up spiritual sacrifices pleasing to God through Jesus Christ.
2:6
The Bible includes comment about this: “Look, I’m putting a stone in Zion, a chosen, invaluable cornerstone, and whoever trusts in it will not be shamed.”
2:7
So he’s invaluable to you who trust him. For those who don’t trust him, however: “The stone that the builders rejected as unfit is the very one that became the cornerstone!”
2:8
Moreover: “A stone to trip over and a rock over which they fall!” Because they disobey the message, they fall, a destiny to which they’ve been consigned.
2:9
you’re
2:10
Although at one time you were “not a people,” now you are “God’s people.” Although at one time you “hadn’t received mercy,” now you “have received it.”
Don’t Act like the World
2:11
Loved ones, I urge you as resident foreigners and resident aliens to stay away from those physical passions that battle against the soul.
2:12
Submit to the World’s Authorities
2:13
Submit to every human system for the Lord’s sake, whether to the king as supreme in rank;
2:14
or to governors, whom God sends to punish people who do wrong and to praise those who do good.
2:15
This is what God wants: by doing good you may silence the ignorance of foolish people.
2:16
So live as people who are free, but don’t use “freedom” as a cloak for wrong, but live as people who are God’s slaves.
2:17
Honor everyone! Love the spiritual family—your brothers and sisters in Christ! Reverence God! Honor the king.
Submission of Slaves
2:18
Slaves, submit to your masters with all respect, not only to those who are good and tolerant, but even to the corrupt ones.
2:19
Do this because it brings God’s favor when, for the sake of one’s conscience before God, one puts up with grief while suffering unjustly.
2:20
For what kind of credit do you merit for enduring being beaten as a result of sinning? But if instead you endure suffering as a result of doing right, this brings God’s favor on you.
2:21
Indeed, it’s for this sort of thing you’ve been called, because Christ also suffered on your behalf, leaving a model for you to follow in his steps.
2:22
He’s the one who “didn’t sin, nor was any deceit found in his mouth.”
2:23
When others abused him verbally, he didn’t abuse them back. When he was suffering, he didn’t threaten his abusers. Instead he handed himself over to the one who judges justly.
2:24
He’s the one who “carried our sins” in his body on the cross, so that, since we have died to sins, we may live for righteousness. It’s “by his wounds” you “were healed.”
2:25
That’s because you were like straying sheep. Now, however, you’ve returned to the shepherd and overseer of your souls.
Submission of Wives; Mutuality with Husbands
3:1
In the same way, wives, submit to your own husbands, so that even if any are disobedient to the message, they may be won without speech through their wives’ behavior.
3:2
This can happen as they observe your pure behavior and respect.
3:3
Don’t let your adornment be merely external, such as braiding your hair, wearing gold, or putting on clothes.
3:4
3:5
For this is how the women of the past, who were consecrated to God and placed their expectation in him, used to adorn themselves. They submitted to their own husbands;
3:6
for example, Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him, “My lord.” You have become her children if you do good and are not frightened by any terror.
3:7
In the same way, husbands, live together with your wife, taking into account what you know. Thus treat her as the more vulnerable member, granting her the honor appropriate to a fellow heir of the grace of life. Do this lest your own prayers be hindered!
Treat Everyone Kindly
3:8
Finally, to all of you: be like-minded, feeling for one another, familial in your love, tender-hearted, and humble in your thinking.
3:9
Don’t pay back wrong for wrong. Don’t answer an insult with another insult—instead, bless your mockers! Because God called you for this lifestyle, so that you would inherit blessing.
3:10
We know this because, “Whoever wants life and loves to see pleasant times needs to keep their tongue from wrong and their lips from speaking deceit.
3:11
“Let them turn from wrong and do good. Let them seek peace and pursue it!
3:12
“For the Lord watches over people who are just, and he heeds their requests. But he’s against those who do wrong!”
Better to Suffer Unjustly than Justly
3:13
Now, who’s going to wrong you if you become zealous for good?
3:14
But even if you suffer because of righteousness, it’s well with you. “Don’t fear what scares them or be shaken,
3:15
“but consecrate” Christ as “Lord” in your hearts. Always be ready to provide a defense to anyone who questions you about your expectation.
3:16
But make sure you do it with graciousness and respect. Likewise, keep a clear conscience, so that when your abusers slander you for your good behavior in Christ, they may be shamed.
3:17
For it is better to suffer for doing good, if this is God’s will, than to suffer for doing wrong.
Christ’s Suffering and Exaltation
3:18
This is true because Christ also suffered, in his case as a once-for-all sacrifice for sins. He suffered, the just for the unjust, to bring you to God. Although he was killed in the flesh, he was made alive by the Spirit.
3:19
By that Spirit he also, as he went, made proclamation to the imprisoned spirits.
3:20
3:21
3:22
He’s at God’s right hand. He went into heaven, now that angels and authorities and powers have been made to submit to him.
4:1
In light of this, since Christ suffered in the flesh, get your own hearts ready to suffer! Do so because whoever has suffered in the flesh has given up sin.
4:2
Thus they no longer live the rest of their lives for human passions; instead, they live it for God’s will.
Live for God’s Assessment, Not the World’s
4:3
For the time that’s passed away was already more than enough for you to live the way gentiles want to. They like to go around uninhibited, in passions, drunkenness, wild partying, and unrestrained worship of statues of false gods.
4:4
As they go about this behavior, they’re amazed that you don’t join them in their wasteful excesses. That’s why they say terrible things about you.
4:5
But they are going to have to render an accounting to the one who’s ready to judge the living and the dead.
4:6
That’s why the good news was also preached to those who are dead: so that they might be judged in the flesh, from the human standpoint, but have life by the Spirit, from God’s standpoint.
Serve One Another
4:7
The climax of everything has drawn near. Therefore think in a wise and sober way so that you may pray.
4:8
Most important, love each other devotedly, because “Love covers many sins.”
4:9
Show hospitality to each other without complaining.
4:10
Just as each of you has received a gift, use that to serve each other as good managers of God’s many-sided grace.
4:11
If anyone speaks, let their speech be like oracles from God! If anyone serves, let them do so from the strength that God supplies! Let each believer act as God’s agent so that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. Yes, the glory and power are rightly his, forever and ever, amen!
Suffering for Christ
4:12
Loved ones, don’t think strange the fiery burning that comes to test you, as if something strange were happening to you.
4:13
Instead, to the extent that you’re sharing Christ’s sufferings, be glad, so you may celebrate with joy when his glory is revealed.
4:14
4:15
But don’t let any of you suffer as a murderer or a thief or a wrongdoer or as a troublemaker.
4:16
But if any of you suffers for being a “Christian,” don’t be ashamed of that. Instead, give honor to God by this name.
4:17
Be ready for such hardship, because it’s time for judgment to begin with God’s household. And if it begins with us, what will be the outcome for those who disobey God’s good news?
4:18
And “If it’s hard for the just to be saved, what can we expect for the irreverent and sinners?”
4:19
Keeping this pattern in mind, let those who suffer according to God’s will entrust their lives to the trustworthy creator. You entrust yourself to him by continuing to do what’s good.
Servant Leaders and Mutuality
5:1
In light of all this, I’m appealing to the elders among you. I do so as a fellow elder and a witness of Christ’s sufferings, who also shares in the glory that will be revealed.
5:2
Shepherd the part of God’s flock that is among you. Don’t watch over them as if this is something you were forced to do, but willingly; that’s what God wants. Don’t do it greedily; instead do it enthusiastically.
5:3
Don’t lord it over those whom God has allotted you to lead. Instead, be a role model for the flock.
5:4
And when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will get the victors’ unfading wreath of glory.
5:5
all
5:6
So humble yourselves under God’s powerful hand, so that he may exalt you at the right time.
5:7
“Cast all your concerns on” him, because he cares about you.
Stand Firm in God
5:8
Stay disciplined and watchful. Your opponent the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for somebody to devour.
5:9
Stand firm against him in faith, knowing that your spiritual family throughout the world is experiencing the same sorts of sufferings.
5:10
Now may the God of all grace himself, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered for a little while, restore, strengthen, fortify, and establish you.
5:11
The power is his forever and ever! Amen.
5:12
Silvanus, whom I consider a trustworthy brother, helped me write this short message. It’s meant to encourage you and to testify that this is God’s true grace. Stand firm in it!
5:13
Your fellow-chosen, she who is in “Babylon,” greets you, as does my son Mark.
5:14
Greet one another with the kiss of love. Peace to all of you, who are in Christ.