The New Testament

The New Testament › 1 Peter

1 Peter 2

1So put away all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and every kind of slander. 2Like newborn babies, long for pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow into salvation, 3if you have tasted that the Lord is kind.

4As you come to him, a living stone rejected by people but chosen and honored by God, 5you yourselves, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. 6For it stands in Scripture: “Look, I am laying in Zion a chosen and honored cornerstone, and whoever believes in him will never be put to shame.” 7So the honor is yours who believe. But for those who do not believe, “The stone the builders rejected has become the head of the corner,” 8and “a stone to stumble over and a rock to trip over.” They stumble because they disobey the word; this is also what they were appointed to.

9But you are a chosen family, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, so that you may announce the excellences of the one who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. 10Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

11Beloved, I urge you as resident foreigners and sojourners to keep away from fleshly desires, which wage war against the soul. 12Keep your conduct honorable among the Gentiles, so that, although they slander you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.

13Submit to every human institution for the Lord's sake, whether to the emperor as supreme, 14or to governors as sent by him to punish evildoers and praise those who do good. 15For this is God's will: that by doing good you silence the ignorance of foolish people. 16Live as free people, using your freedom not as a covering for evil but as God's slaves. 17Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor.

18Household slaves, submit to your masters with all fear, not only to the good and considerate but also to the crooked. 19For this finds favor: when, out of awareness of God, someone bears grief while suffering unjustly. 20What credit is there if you endure a beating for doing wrong? But if you endure suffering for doing good, this finds favor with God. 21For you were called to this, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you a pattern so that you would follow in his footprints. 22He “committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth.” 23When insulted, he did not insult in return; when suffering, he did not threaten, but entrusted himself to the one who judges justly. 24He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that, having died to sins, we might live to righteousness. By his wound you were healed. 25For you were straying like sheep, but now you have returned to the shepherd and overseer of your souls.

Translation notes 6

2:2–3 — Spiritual milk. “Spiritual” renders a word associated with reason or what is appropriate to rational life; “milk of the word” is another contextual interpretation, connecting it with 1:23–25. It does not literally contain the noun “word.” Some witnesses omit “into salvation”; the Greek base includes it. Tasting that the Lord is kind echoes Psalm 34:8.

2:4–8 — House and stones. The house is pictured as a place of worship, with the community also described as a priesthood. “You are being built” could instead be an instruction, “Let yourselves be built.” The quotations draw on Isaiah 28:16, Psalm 118:22, and Isaiah 8:14. “Head of the corner” preserves the stone image. The appointment clause is left direct; it does not specify how divine appointment relates to the disobedience.

2:9–10 — A chosen family. “Family” here means a people of common descent or stock, not a single household. Israel's scriptural identity language is applied to the recipients without an added statement about the status of other people. The mercy language recalls Hosea 1–2.

2:11–12 — Gentiles and visitation. “Gentiles” here designates the surrounding non-Christian society; it need not imply that the readers are Jewish by ancestry. The “day of visitation” is God's intervention, with judgment and recognition of God both relevant possibilities.

2:13–18 — Authority, freedom, and slavery. “Human institution” is a contextual rendering of a phrase literally meaning “human creation”; “every human creature” is a significant alternative. The ruler is called a king in Greek, here rendered “emperor” in the provincial setting. Household slaves are enslaved people, not employees. “Crooked” describes unjust masters. The instructions address life within these structures without calling the masters' injustice good.

2:19–24 — Favor and suffering. The repeated “finds favor” renders the word also used for grace. “Himself” in verse 23 supplies the unstated object of “entrusted”; “his case” is another possibility. The tree is the cross, with the wooden-tree image retained. The singular “wound” follows the Greek's quotation language from Isaiah 53, rather than changing it to a general promise about the removal of all illness.