Instructions to Wives and Husbands

1 Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some disobey the word, they may be won without a word through the conduct of their wives,
2 having observed your pure conduct in fear.
3 Let your adornment not be the outward, braiding of hair and putting on of gold ornaments or putting on of garments,
4 but the hidden person of the heart, in the incorruptible of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is very precious before God.
5 For in this way formerly the holy women who hoped in God adorned themselves, being subject to their own husbands,
6 just as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him “lord,” whose children you have become when you do good and are not frightened by any terror.

7 Likewise, husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honour to the wife, as to the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life; that your prayers be not hindered.

Christian Conduct in Suffering

8 Finally, all of you be of one mind, sympathetic, loving the brothers and sisters, tender-hearted, humble-minded;
9 not returning evil for evil or insult for insult, but rather blessing, because to this you were called, so that you might inherit a blessing.

10 For “the one desiring to love life and to see good days must keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit;
11 and he must turn away from evil and do good; he must seek peace and pursue it.
12 Because the eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, and His ears toward their prayer; but the face of the Lord is against those doing evil.”

13 And who is the one who will harm you if you become zealots of what is good?
14 But even if you should suffer because of righteousness, you are blessed; and do not fear their fear, nor be troubled,
15 but sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always ready for a defense to everyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and fear,
16 having a good conscience, so that in the thing in which they speak against you, those who revile your good conduct in Christ may be put to shame.
17 For it is better, if the will of God wills it, to suffer for doing good than for doing evil.

Christ’s Suffering, Victory, and Baptism

18 Because Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that He might bring you to God; being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the Spirit,
19 in which also He went and made proclamation to the spirits in prison,
20 who were disobedient formerly, when the patience of God waited in the days of Noah, while an ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight souls, were saved through water.
21 And corresponding to this, baptism now saves you, not the removal of dirt from the flesh, but the appeal of a good conscience toward God, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ,
22 who is at the right hand of God, having gone into heaven, angels and authorities and powers having been subjected to Him.