Passage

1 Peter 2.15

Book: 1 Peter · ASV / WEB / KJV / YLT

Immediate context (±2 verses)

ASV

13. Be subject to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake: whether to the king, as supreme; 14. or unto governors, as sent by him for vengeance on evil-doers and for praise to them that do well.

15. For so is the will of God, that by well-doing ye should put to silence the ignorance of foolish men:

as free, and not using your freedom for a cloak of wickedness, but as bondservants of God. 17. Honor all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the king. (1 Peter 2:13-17, ASV)

WEB

13. Therefore subject yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake: whether to the king, as supreme; 14. or to governors, as sent by him for vengeance on evildoers and for praise to those who do well.

15. For this is the will of God, that by well-doing you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish men:

as free, and not using your freedom for a cloak of wickedness, but as bondservants of God. 17. Honor all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the king. (1 Peter 2:13-17, WEB)

KJV

13. Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake: whether it be to the king, as supreme; 14. Or unto governors, as unto them that are sent by him for the punishment of evildoers, and for the praise of them that do well.

15. For so is the will of God, that with well doing ye may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men:

As free, and not using your liberty for a cloke of maliciousness, but as the servants of God. ^{using: Gr. having} 17. Honour all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honour the king. ^{Honour all: or, Esteem all} (1 Peter 2:13-17, KJV)

YLT

13. Be subject, then, to every human creation, because of the Lord, whether to a king, as the highest, 14. whether to governors, as to those sent through him, for punishment, indeed, of evil-doers, and a praise of those doing good;

15. because, so is the will of God, doing good, to put to silence the ignorance of the foolish men;

as free, and not having the freedom as the cloak of the evil, but as servants of God; 17. to all give ye honour; the brotherhood love ye; God fear ye; the king honour ye. (1 Peter 2:13-17, YLT)

See this page's graph and discover linked topics

Setting

Speaker: Peter the apostle, writing with the help of Silvanus (1 Pet 5:12).
Audience: Christians described as "those who reside as aliens, scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia" (1 Pet 1:1), five Roman provinces in northern and central Asia Minor. The audience is largely Gentile (1 Pet 1:18, a futile way of life inherited from their forefathers; 4:3-4).
Location: Written from "Babylon" (1 Pet 5:13), which the great majority of interpreters read as a cipher for Rome, as in Revelation 17:5.
Time period: c. AD 62-64 on the traditional authorship, before or at the very beginning of the Neronian persecution. The hostility the letter addresses is social and local, slander, exclusion, and abuse, rather than empire-wide legal prosecution.

Theological reading

"For such is the will of God that by doing right you may silence the ignorance of foolish men."

"Silence." Phimoun is the verb for muzzling an animal, used of the ox at 1 Timothy 5:18 and of Jesus stilling the storm at Mark 4:39. The image is of shutting a mouth, and the instrument Peter names is conduct rather than argument.

The strategy of the letter. Peter's readers are being slandered (1 Peter 2:12; 3:16; 4:4), most likely for withdrawing from civic and religious life that everyone else took for granted. His counsel is neither retaliation nor withdrawal but visible good, which removes the raw material the slander runs on. The same logic drives 1 Peter 3:15-16, where the defense is to be given with gentleness precisely so that the revilers are put to shame.

"The will of God." Peter states it as flatly as Paul does at 1 Thessalonians 4:3 and 5:18, and like Paul he fills it with something concrete and unglamorous rather than with guidance about circumstances.

"Ignorance." Agnōsia, not stupidity but not-knowing. Peter treats the hostility as substantially uninformed, which is consistent with what is known of early Roman perceptions of Christians, where rumors of atheism, cannibalism, and incest circulated because the meetings were closed. Conduct in public was a rational answer to a problem of that kind.

Key words

Theologically-loaded Greek or Hebrew words in this verse may have entries in the lexicon. Curated to roughly 100 contested terms across the corpus, not every word.

TBD
TBD
TBD
TBD

Quoted in

Concepts:

Passages:

1 Peter 3.13

Notes

Your annotations.

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.