Passage

1 Peter 1.22

Book: 1 Peter · ASV

Immediate context (±2 verses)

ASV (ASV)

"20. who was foreknown indeed before the foundation of the world, but was manifested at the end of times for your sake, 21. who through him are believers in God, that raised him from the dead, and gave him glory; so that your faith and hope might be in God."

"22. Seeing ye have purified your souls in your obedience to the truth unto unfeigned love of the brethren, love one another from the heart fervently:"

"23. having been begotten again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, through the word of God, which liveth and abideth. 24. For, All flesh is as grass, And all the glory thereof as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower falleth:" (1 Peter 1:20-24, ASV)

WEB (WEB)

"20. who was foreknown indeed before the foundation of the world, but was revealed in this last age for your sake, 21. who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead, and gave him glory; so that your faith and hope might be in God."

"22. Seeing you have purified your souls in your obedience to the truth through the Spirit in sincere brotherly affection, love one another from the heart fervently:"

"23. having been born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, through the word of God, which lives and remains forever. 24. For, “All flesh is like grass, and all of man’s glory like the flower in the grass. The grass withers, and its flower falls;" (1 Peter 1:20-24, WEB)

KJV (KJV)

"20. Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you, 21. Who by him do believe in God, that raised him up from the dead, and gave him glory; that your faith and hope might be in God."

"22. Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently:"

"23. Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever. 24. For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away: ^{For: or, For that}" (1 Peter 1:20-24, KJV)

YLT (YLT)

"20. foreknown, indeed, before the foundation of the world, and manifested in the last times because of you, 21. who through him do believe in God, who did raise out of the dead, and glory to him did give, so that your faith and hope may be in God."

"22. Your souls having purified in the obedience of the truth through the Spirit to brotherly love unfeigned, out of a pure heart one another love ye earnestly,"

"23. being begotten again, not out of seed corruptible, but incorruptible, through a word of God, living and remaining, to the age; 24. because all flesh [is] as grass, and all glory of man as flower of grass; wither did the grass, and the flower of it fell away," (1 Peter 1:20-24, YLT)

Setting

Speaker: Peter
Audience: scattered believers across Asia Minor
Location: likely composed in Rome (1 Pet 5:13)
Time period: c. AD 62-64; during the Neronian persecution

Theological reading

1 Peter 1:22 names obedience to the truth as the means of soul-purification (tas psychas hēmōn hēgnikotes en tē hypakoē tēs alētheias). Three structural points organize the verse's force:

(1) The participle is perfect-active, hēgnikotes, "having purified", naming a completed prior-action whose effect continues. The Petrine framing: the soul-purifying-via-obedience-to-the-truth is the grounding of the imperative that follows ("love one another from the heart"). The believer's prior obedience to the gospel-truth has already purified the soul; the imperative to love flows from that established reality.

(2) The locus is en tē hypakoē tēs alētheias, "in the obedience-to-the-truth." The genitive tēs alētheias names the object of the obedience: not abstract-moral-conformity but specifically obedience to the gospel-truth. The Petrine "truth" (alētheia) is the gospel-revealed-in-Christ, the same truth of 2 Pet 1:12 ("the truth which is with you"), Eph 1:13 ("the word of the truth, the gospel of your salvation"), 2 Thess 2:13 ("belief of the truth"). The believer's hypakoē to this truth, the gospel of the Christ proclaimed-and-believed, is the soul-purifying reality.

(3) The telos is love of the brethren, eis philadelphian anhypokriton ("unto unfeigned love of the brethren"). Obedience-to-the-truth and brotherly love are not separate Christian projects; the hypakoē of the truth produces the philadelphia. The Petrine architecture aligns with the Johannine, "if a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar" (1 John 4:20), and the Pauline, "the end of the charge is love out of a pure heart and a good conscience and faith unfeigned" (1 Tim 1:5). The triadic structure (truth → obedience → love) is canonical-mainstream.

The verse is one of the key Petrine anchors for the sanctification-via-obedience-to-the-truth doctrine. The Reformed tradition reads it as confirmation that the believer's hypakoē is not the basis of soul-purification (which is Christ's blood, 1 Pet 1:18-19) but the Spirit-empowered means through which that purification is actualized in the believer's experience. The Wesleyan-Holiness tradition reads it more strongly, as warrant for the entire-sanctification doctrine and the believer's progressive-perfecting-through-truth-obedience. Both readings affirm the verse's core: the obedience-to-the-truth is a soul-purifying reality, and brotherly love is its outworking-evidence.

The companion verses 23-24 ("begotten again... through the word of God") and the chapter-closing v. 25 ("the word of the Lord abideth for ever") confirm the framework: the truth to which the believer's hypakoē responds is the living-and-abiding word of God proclaimed in the gospel.

Key words

G5218 - hypakoe, the noun hypakoē (G5218), here in the dative en tē hypakoē ("in the obedience"). The Petrine framing of obedience-to-the-truth as soul-purifying-means. See also G5219 - hypakouo for the verbal cognate.

Quoted in

Why these four translations

ris3n chose ASV, WEB, KJV, and YLT for two reasons together. They are the most literal English translations available (formal-equivalence: word-for-word renderings that preserve the Hebrew and Greek grammar rather than smoothing it into modern dynamic-equivalence idiom). And they are in the public domain in the United States, which means fair-use quotation at any length requires no publisher license. Modern licensed translations (NASB95, ESV, NIV) restrict volume of quotation under their copyright terms, so they are not used at stub-level coverage here. NASB95 appears only on hand-curated rich passage hubs under Lockman Foundation's fair-use allowance.

The four:

ASV (American Standard Version, 1901). The basis of the modern critical-text English tradition.
WEB (World English Bible, contemporary). Public-domain revision in the ASV line, in current English.
KJV (King James Version, 1611). Reformation-era, Textus Receptus base.
YLT (Young's Literal Translation, Robert Young, 1862). Hyper-literal preservation of Hebrew and Greek grammar; useful for word-study work even where English reads stiff.

See Bibles for the full per-translation history, translators, textual basis, strengths, and weaknesses.