1 Peter 3:2

THE MESSAGE

Parallel Translations

Christian Standard Bible®
when they observe your pure, reverent lives.

King James Version (1611)
While they beholde your chaste conuersation coupled with feare:

King James Version
While they behold your chaste conversation coupled with fear.

English Standard Version
when they see your respectful and pure conduct.

New American Standard Bible
as they observe your pure and respectful behavior.

New Century Version
Your husbands will see the pure lives you live with your respect for God.

New American Standard Bible (1995)
as they observe your chaste and respectful behavior.

Berean Standard Bible
when they see your pure and reverent demeanor.

Contemporary English Version
because he will see how you honor God and live a pure life.

Complete Jewish Bible
as they see your respectful and pure behavior.

Darby Translation
having witnessed your pure conversation [carried out] in fear;

Easy-to-Read Version
Your husbands will see the pure lives that you live with respect for God.

Geneva Bible (1587)
While they beholde your pure conuersation, which is with feare.

George Lamsa Translation
When they see that you conduct yourselves with respect and modesty.

Good News Translation
because they will see how pure and reverent your conduct is.

Lexham English Bible
when they see your respectful, pure conduct.

Literal Translation
observing your pure behavior in fear.

Amplified Bible
when they see your modest and respectful behavior [together with your devotion and appreciation—love your husband, encourage him, and enjoy him as a blessing from God].

American Standard Version
beholding your chaste behavior coupled with fear.

Bible in Basic English
When they see your holy behaviour in the fear of God.

Hebrew Names Version
seeing your pure behavior in fear.

International Standard Version
when they see your pure and reverent lives.1 Peter 2:12;">[xr]

Etheridge Translation
while they see that with reverence and with chastity you conduct yourselves.

Murdock Translation
when they see, that ye conduct yourselves with reverence and chastity.

Bishop's Bible (1568)
Whyle they beholde your chaste conuersation coupled with feare.

English Revised Version
beholding your chaste behaviour [coupled] with fear.

World English Bible
seeing your pure behavior in fear.

Wesley's New Testament (1755)
Beholding your chaste conversation joined with fear:

Weymouth's New Testament
so full of reverence, and so blameless!

Wycliffe Bible (1395)
And biholde ye in drede youre hooli conuersacioun.

Update Bible Version
watching your chaste behavior [coupled] with fear.

Webster's Bible Translation
While they behold your chaste manner of life [coupled] with fear.

New English Translation
when they see your pure and reverent conduct.

New King James Version
when they observe your chaste conduct accompanied by fear.

New Living Translation
by observing your pure and reverent lives.

New Life Bible
They will see how you love God and how your lives are pure.

New Revised Standard
when they see the purity and reverence of your lives.

J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
Having been permitted to behold your reverently chaste behaviour, -

Douay-Rheims Bible
Considering your chaste conversation with fear.

Revised Standard Version
when they see your reverent and chaste behavior.

Tyndale New Testament (1525)
whill they beholde youre pure coversacion coupled with feare.

Young's Literal Translation
having beheld your pure behaviour in fear,

Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
whan they beholde yor pure conuersacion in feare.

Mace New Testament (1729)
by observing the religious chastity of their manners.

Simplified Cowboy Version
They will see how pure and reverent you are.

Contextual Overview

¹The same goes for you wives: Be good wives to your husbands, responsive to their needs. There are husbands who, indifferent as they are to any words about God, will be captivated by your life of holy beauty. What matters is not your outer appearance—the styling of your hair, the jewelry you wear, the cut of your clothes—but your inner disposition. Cultivate inner beauty, the gentle, gracious kind that God delights in. The holy women of old were beautiful before God that way, and were good, loyal wives to their husbands. Sarah, for instance, taking care of Abraham, would address him as "my dear husband." You'll be true daughters of Sarah if you do the same, unanxious and unintimidated. The same goes for you husbands: Be good husbands to your wives. Honor them, delight in them. As women they lack some of your advantages. But in the new life of God's grace, you're equals. Treat your wives, then, as equals so your prayers don't run aground. Summing up: Be agreeable, be sympathetic, be loving, be compassionate, be humble. That goes for all of you, no exceptions. No retaliation. No sharp-tongued sarcasm. Instead, bless—that's your job, to bless. You'll be a blessing and also get a blessing. Whoever wants to embrace life and see the day fill up with good, Here's what you do: Say nothing evil or hurtful; Snub evil and cultivate good; run after peace for all you're worth. God looks on all this with approval, listening and responding well to what he's asked; But he turns his back on those who do evil things. If with heart and soul you're doing good, do you think you can be stopped? Even if you suffer for it, you're still better off. Don't give the opposition a second thought. Through thick and thin, keep your hearts at attention, in adoration before Christ, your Master. Be ready to speak up and tell anyone who asks why you're living the way you are, and always with the utmost courtesy. Keep a clear conscience before God so that when people throw mud at you, none of it will stick. They'll end up realizing that they're the ones who need a bath. It's better to suffer for doing good, if that's what God wants, than to be punished for doing bad. That's what Christ did definitively: suffered because of others' sins, the Righteous One for the unrighteous ones. He went through it all—was put to death and then made alive—to bring us to God. He went and proclaimed God's salvation to earlier generations who ended up in the prison of judgment because they wouldn't listen. You know, even though God waited patiently all the days that Noah built his ship, only a few were saved then, eight to be exact—saved from the water by the water. The waters of baptism do that for you, not by washing away dirt from your skin but by presenting you through Jesus' resurrection before God with a clear conscience. Jesus has the last word on everything and everyone, from angels to armies. He's standing right alongside God, and what he says goes. ⁵Cultivate Inner Beauty The same goes for you wives: Be good wives to your husbands, responsive to their needs. There are husbands who, indifferent as they are to any words about God, will be captivated by your life of holy beauty. What matters is not your outer appearance—the styling of your hair, the jewelry you wear, the cut of your clothes—but your inner disposition. Cultivate inner beauty, the gentle, gracious kind that God delights in. The holy women of old were beautiful before God that way, and were good, loyal wives to their husbands. Sarah, for instance, taking care of Abraham, would address him as "my dear husband." You'll be true daughters of Sarah if you do the same, unanxious and unintimidated. The same goes for you husbands: Be good husbands to your wives. Honor them, delight in them. As women they lack some of your advantages. But in the new life of God's grace, you're equals. Treat your wives, then, as equals so your prayers don't run aground. Summing up: Be agreeable, be sympathetic, be loving, be compassionate, be humble. That goes for all of you, no exceptions. No retaliation. No sharp-tongued sarcasm. Instead, bless—that's your job, to bless. You'll be a blessing and also get a blessing. Whoever wants to embrace life and see the day fill up with good, Here's what you do: Say nothing evil or hurtful; Snub evil and cultivate good; run after peace for all you're worth. God looks on all this with approval, listening and responding well to what he's asked; But he turns his back on those who do evil things. If with heart and soul you're doing good, do you think you can be stopped? Even if you suffer for it, you're still better off. Don't give the opposition a second thought. Through thick and thin, keep your hearts at attention, in adoration before Christ, your Master. Be ready to speak up and tell anyone who asks why you're living the way you are, and always with the utmost courtesy. Keep a clear conscience before God so that when people throw mud at you, none of it will stick. They'll end up realizing that they're the ones who need a bath. It's better to suffer for doing good, if that's what God wants, than to be punished for doing bad. That's what Christ did definitively: suffered because of others' sins, the Righteous One for the unrighteous ones. He went through it all—was put to death and then made alive—to bring us to God. He went and proclaimed God's salvation to earlier generations who ended up in the prison of judgment because they wouldn't listen. You know, even though God waited patiently all the days that Noah built his ship, only a few were saved then, eight to be exact—saved from the water by the water. The waters of baptism do that for you, not by washing away dirt from your skin but by presenting you through Jesus' resurrection before God with a clear conscience. Jesus has the last word on everything and everyone, from angels to armies. He's standing right alongside God, and what he says goes. ⁶Cultivate Inner Beauty The same goes for you wives: Be good wives to your husbands, responsive to their needs. There are husbands who, indifferent as they are to any words about God, will be captivated by your life of holy beauty. What matters is not your outer appearance—the styling of your hair, the jewelry you wear, the cut of your clothes—but your inner disposition. Cultivate inner beauty, the gentle, gracious kind that God delights in. The holy women of old were beautiful before God that way, and were good, loyal wives to their husbands. Sarah, for instance, taking care of Abraham, would address him as "my dear husband." You'll be true daughters of Sarah if you do the same, unanxious and unintimidated. ⁷ The same goes for you husbands: Be good husbands to your wives. Honor them, delight in them. As women they lack some of your advantages. But in the new life of God's grace, you're equals. Treat your wives, then, as equals so your prayers don't run aground.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

behold: 1 Peter 3:16, 1 Peter 1:15, 1 Peter 2:12, Philippians 1:27, Philippians 3:20, 1 Timothy 4:12, 2 Peter 3:11

with: 1 Peter 3:5, 1 Peter 3:6, 1 Peter 3:15, Ephesians 5:33, Ephesians 6:5, Colossians 3:22

Reciprocal: Matthew 6:29 - even John 15:16 - that your 1 Corinthians 7:16 - O wife James 3:13 - a good

Gill's Notes on the Bible

While they behold your chaste conversation,.... Cheerful subjection, strong affection, and inviolable attachment to them, and strict regard to the honour of the marriage state, and to the preserving of the bed undefiled with lusts and adulteries:

coupled with fear; with reverence of their husbands, giving them due honour, and showing all proper respect; or with the fear of God, which being before their eyes, and upon their hearts, engages them to such an agreeable conversation.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

While they behold your chaste conversation - Your pure conduct. The word chaste here (ἁγνὴν hagnēn) refer’s to purity of conduct in all respects, and not merely to chastity properly so called. It includes that, but it also embraces much more. The conduct of the wife is to be in all respects pure; and this is to be the grand instrumentality in the conversion of her husband. A wife may be strictly chaste, and yet there may be many other things in her conduct and temper which would mar the beauty of her piety, and prevent any happy influence on the mind of her husband,

Coupled with fear - The word fear, in this place, may refer either to the fear of God, or to a proper respect and reverence for their husbands, Ephesians 5:33. The trait of character which is referred to is that of proper respect and reverence in all the relations which she sustained, as opposed to a trifling and frivolous mind. Leighton suggests that the word fear here relates particularly to the other duty enjoined - that of chaste conversation - “fearing the least stain of chastity, or the very appearance of anything not suiting with it. It is a delicate, timorous grace, afraid of the least air, or shadow of anything that hath but a resemblance of wronging it, in carriage, or speech, or apparel.”

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse 1 Peter 3:2. Chaste conversation - with fear. — While they see that ye join modesty, chastity, and the purest manners, to the fear of God. Or perhaps fear, φοβος, is taken, as in Ephesians 5:33, for the reverence due to the husband.