1 Likewise, you wives, be submissive to your own husbands, so that even if some of them do not obey the word, they may be won over without a word by the way their wives live,
2 as they watch your chaste conduct joined with fear.
3 Let your adorning not be the outward kind—braiding the hair, hanging on of gold, or wearing of garments—
4 but the hidden person of the heart, in the imperishable quality of a meek and tranquil spirit, which in God's eyes is of great price.
5 For in this manner, long ago, the holy women also, who set their hope on God, made themselves beautiful, being under their own husbands,
6 as Sarah was obedient to Abraham, calling him lord; and you have become her daughters, as long as you do good and are not terrified by any alarm.
7 Husbands, likewise, dwell with them in accordance with knowledge, giving honor to the woman as to a weaker vessel, as being co-heirs of the grace of life, so that your prayers are not obstructed.
8 In conclusion, be all of one mind, sharing in each other's feelings, full of brotherly love, tender of heart, courteous,
9 not giving back evil in exchange for evil, or reviling in exchange for reviling, but blessing in return, knowing that you were called to this, to inherit a blessing.
10 For "the one who wishes to love life and see good days, let him restrain his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit;
11 let him turn aside from evil and do good, let him seek peace and go after it.
12 For the Lord's eyes are upon the righteous, and his ears are turned to their pleading; but the Lord's face is against those who do evil."
13 And who will do you harm if you become imitators of the good?
14 But even should you suffer because of righteousness, you are blessed. Do not fear what they fear, and do not be disturbed,
15 but sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always stand ready with a defense for everyone who asks you for an account of the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear,
16 keeping a good conscience, so that, in the very thing in which they speak against you as evildoers, those who abuse your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame.
17 For it is better, if the will of God should so will, to suffer for doing right than for doing wrong.
18 For Christ also suffered for sins once, the just on behalf of the unjust, so as to lead us to God, being put to death in the flesh but quickened by the Spirit,
19 in whom he also went and made proclamation to the spirits in prison,
20 who once were disobedient, when once the patience of God waited in the days of Noah while the ark was being built, in which a few, that is, eight souls, were brought safely through water.
21 The antitype of this, baptism, now saves us also—not a stripping off of filth from the flesh, but the appeal of a good conscience to God—through the resurrection of Jesus Christ,
22 who has passed into heaven and is at the right hand of God, angels and authorities and powers having been placed under him.