1 Peter 1:18
New International Version
For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors,

New Living Translation
For you know that God paid a ransom to save you from the empty life you inherited from your ancestors. And it was not paid with mere gold or silver, which lose their value.

English Standard Version
knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold,

Berean Standard Bible
For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life you inherited from your forefathers,

Berean Literal Bible
knowing that you were redeemed from your futile manner of life handed down from your fathers, not by perishable things--by silver or by gold--

King James Bible
Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers;

New King James Version
knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers,

New American Standard Bible
knowing that you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers,

NASB 1995
knowing that you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers,

NASB 1977
knowing that you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers,

Legacy Standard Bible
knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things like silver or gold from your futile conduct inherited from your forefathers,

Amplified Bible
For you know that you were not redeemed from your useless [spiritually unproductive] way of life inherited [by tradition] from your forefathers with perishable things like silver and gold,

Christian Standard Bible
For you know that you were redeemed from your empty way of life inherited from your ancestors, not with perishable things like silver or gold,

Holman Christian Standard Bible
For you know that you were redeemed from your empty way of life inherited from the fathers, not with perishable things like silver or gold,

American Standard Version
knowing that ye were redeemed, not with corruptible things, with silver or gold, from your vain manner of life handed down from your fathers;

Aramaic Bible in Plain English
As you know that you were redeemed from your worthless works which you received from your fathers, not with silver which wears out, neither with gold,

Contemporary English Version
You were rescued from the useless way of life you learned from your ancestors. But you know you were not rescued by such things as silver or gold that don't last forever.

Douay-Rheims Bible
Knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things as gold or silver, from your vain conversation of the tradition of your fathers:

English Revised Version
knowing that ye were redeemed, not with corruptible things, with silver or gold, from your vain manner of life handed down from your fathers;

GOD'S WORD® Translation
Realize that you weren't set free from the worthless life handed down to you from your ancestors by a payment of silver or gold which can be destroyed.

Good News Translation
For you know what was paid to set you free from the worthless manner of life handed down by your ancestors. It was not something that can be destroyed, such as silver or gold;

International Standard Version
For you know that it was not with perishable things like silver or gold that you have been ransomed from the worthless way of life handed down to you by your ancestors,

Literal Standard Version
having known that, not with corruptible things—silver or gold—were you redeemed from your foolish behavior inherited from our forefathers,

Majority Standard Bible
For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life you inherited from your forefathers,

New American Bible
realizing that you were ransomed from your futile conduct, handed on by your ancestors, not with perishable things like silver or gold

NET Bible
You know that from your empty way of life inherited from your ancestors you were ransomed--not by perishable things like silver or gold,

New Revised Standard Version
You know that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your ancestors, not with perishable things like silver or gold,

New Heart English Bible
knowing that you were redeemed, not with corruptible things, with silver or gold, from the useless way of life handed down from your fathers,

Webster's Bible Translation
Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain course of life received by tradition from your fathers;

Weymouth New Testament
knowing, as you do, that it was not with a ransom of perishable wealth, such as silver or gold, that you were set free from your frivolous habits of life which had been handed down to you from your forefathers,

World English Bible
knowing that you were redeemed, not with corruptible things like silver or gold, from the useless way of life handed down from your fathers,

Young's Literal Translation
having known that, not with corruptible things -- silver or gold -- were ye redeemed from your foolish behaviour delivered by fathers,

Additional Translations ...
Audio Bible



Context
A Call to Holiness
17Since you call on a Father who judges each one’s work impartially, conduct yourselves in reverent fear during your stay as foreigners. 18For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life you inherited from your forefathers, 19but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or spot.…

Cross References
Isaiah 44:22
I have blotted out your transgressions like a cloud, and your sins like a mist. Return to Me, for I have redeemed you.

Isaiah 52:3
For this is what the LORD says: "You were sold for nothing, and without money you will be redeemed."

Jeremiah 9:14
Instead, they have followed the stubbornness of their hearts and gone after the Baals, as their fathers taught them."

1 Corinthians 6:20
you were bought at a price. Therefore glorify God with your body.

Ephesians 4:17
So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking.

Titus 2:14
He gave Himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds.

Hebrews 9:12
He did not enter by the blood of goats and calves, but He entered the Most Holy Place once for all by His own blood, thus securing eternal redemption.


Treasury of Scripture

For as much as you know that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers;

ye.

Psalm 49:7,8
None of them can by any means redeem his brother, nor give to God a ransom for him: …

1 Corinthians 6:20
For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's.

1 Corinthians 7:23
Ye are bought with a price; be not ye the servants of men.

corruptible.

1 Peter 1:7
That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ:

vain.

Psalm 39:6
Surely every man walketh in a vain shew: surely they are disquieted in vain: he heapeth up riches, and knoweth not who shall gather them.

Psalm 62:10
Trust not in oppression, and become not vain in robbery: if riches increase, set not your heart upon them.

Jeremiah 4:11
At that time shall it be said to this people and to Jerusalem, A dry wind of the high places in the wilderness toward the daughter of my people, not to fan, nor to cleanse,

received.

1 Peter 4:3
For the time past of our life may suffice us to have wrought the will of the Gentiles, when we walked in lasciviousness, lusts, excess of wine, revellings, banquetings, and abominable idolatries:

Jeremiah 9:14
But have walked after the imagination of their own heart, and after Baalim, which their fathers taught them:

Jeremiah 16:19
O LORD, my strength, and my fortress, and my refuge in the day of affliction, the Gentiles shall come unto thee from the ends of the earth, and shall say, Surely our fathers have inherited lies, vanity, and things wherein there is no profit.

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1 Peter 1
1. Peter praises God for his manifold spiritual graces;
10. showing that the salvation in Christ the fulfillment of prophesy;
13. and exhorts them accordingly to be holy.














(18) Forasmuch as ye know.--This correctly paraphrases the simple original knowing. Security, which is the opposite of the fear of the Father, is incompatible with knowing by whose and what anguish alone the inheritance could be purchased for us.

Corruptible things.--St. Peter's contempt for "silver and gold" is shown early in his history (Acts 3:6; comp. 1Peter 3:4). Gold and silver will come to an end with everything else that is material. Observe that, by contrast, the "blood of Christ" is implied to be not corruptible; and that, not because of the miraculous incorruption of Jesus Christ's flesh, but because the "blood of Christ" of which the Apostle here speaks is not material. The natural blood of Jesus was only the sign and sacrament of that by which He truly and inwardly redeemed the world. (See Isaiah 53:12, "He poured out His soul unto death," and Hebrews 10:9-10.)

Redeemed . . . from your vain conversation.--We have to notice (1) what the "redemption" means, and (2) what the readers were redeemed from. Now (1) the word "redeem" is the same which is used in Luke 24:21 ("We used to hope that He was the person destined to redeem Israel"), and in Titus 2:14 ("Gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from all iniquity"), and nowhere else. The substantive appears in Luke 1:68; Luke 2:38; Hebrews 9:12, to represent the action of redeeming; and in Acts 7:35, of Moses, to represent the person who effects such a redemption. Properly it means to ransom a person, to get them out of slavery or captivity by paying a ransom (Matthew 20:28; Mark 10:45; comp. 1Timothy 2:6). The notion of an actual ransom paid, however, was apt to slip away, as in the case of Moses just quoted, who certainly gave nothing of the nature of an equivalent to Pharaoh for the loss of his serfs. So that here, as in all passages relating to the Atonement, we must be very careful not to press the metaphor, or to consider it as more than a metaphor. The leading notion here is not that of paying an equivalent, but to call closer attention to the state in which the readers were before. It was a servitude like that of Egypt, or a captivity like that of Babylon, from which they needed a "ransomer" like Moses or Zerubbabel. What then was that condition? (2) St. Peter describes it as a "vain conversation traditional from the fathers." The word "conversation" again catches up 1Peter 1:15; 1Peter 1:17, "be holy in your conduct; let it be a conduct of fear; for your old vain conduct needed a terrible ransom before you could be set at liberty from it." The question is, whether a Gentile or Jewish mode of life is intended. If it meant merely as regards religious worship, it would suit either way, for it was of the essence of Roman state "religion" that it should be the same from generation to generation. (See Acts 24:14.) But "conversation" or "manner of life" is far too wide a word to be thus limited, and at the same time the word "tradition" implies (in the New Testament) something sedulously taught, purposely handed down from father to son as an heirloom, so that it could not be applied to the careless, sensual life of Gentiles, learned by example only. On the other hand, among the Jews "tradition" entered into the minutest details of daily life or "conversation." (See Mark 7:3-4--the Petrine Gospel.) It was a matter of serious "tradition" how a cup was to be washed. "Vain" (i.e., frivolous) seems not an unnatural epithet to apply to such a mode of life, especially to one who had heard Mark 7:7. It would seem, then, that the readers of this Letter were certainly Jews by birth. But would the Apostle of the Circumcision, the supposed head of the legal party in the Church, dare to call Judaism a "vain conversation," to stigmatise it (the single compound adjective in the Greek has a contemptuous ring) as "imposed by tradition of the fathers," and to imply that it was like an Egyptian bondage? We have only to turn to Acts 15:10, and we find him uttering precisely the same sentiments, and calling Judaism a slavish "yoke," which was not only so bad for Gentiles that to impose it upon them was to tempt God, but also was secretly or openly felt intolerable by himself, by all the Jews there present, and even by the fathers who had imposed it. Judaism itself, then, in the form it had then assumed, was one of the foes and oppressors from which Christ came to "ransom" and "save" His people. (See Notes on 1Peter 1:9-10, and comp. Acts 13:39.) . . .

Verse 18. - Forasmuch as ye know; literally, knowing, considering. That ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold. The order in the original gives mere emphasis: "That not with corruptible things, silver and gold, were ye redeemed." Afford notes here that the diminutives (ἀργυρίῳ ἤ χρυσίῳ) stand generally (not always) for the coined or wrought metal. The word ἐλυτρώθητε, "ye were ransomed," seems to point back to the great saying of our Lord, "The Son of man came... to give his life a ransom for many (λύτρον ἀντὶ πολλῶν)" (Matthew 20:28; Mark 10:45; comp. 1 Timothy 2:6). Doubtless no human language can adequately express the mystery of the atonement. That stupendous fact transcends human reason, and cannot be exactly defined in human words. But the Lord himself describes it as a ransom" a ransom for many," given in their stead. Reverence keeps us from pressing the illustration in all its details. It may be that the correspondence between the atonement and the redemption of a slave from an earthly master is not exact in all points. But the illustration comes from the Lord himself, who is the Truth; it must be true as far as human language permits, as far as human reason can comprehend. It teaches, as plainly as words can express, the doctrine of vicarious satisfaction: he gave his life, not only in behalf of us, but also instead of us - a ransom for our sins. Compare the use of the word ἀγοράζειν (1 Corinthians 6:20), "Ye are bought with a price;" and (2 Peter 2:1), "The Lord that bought them;" also ἐξαγοράζειν (Galatians 3:13), "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the Law." From your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; literally, out of your vain manner of life or conduct. The word here rendered '" vain ' is used of idolatry in Acts 14:15, and also the corresponding verb in Romans 1:21. St. Peter seems to be thinking mainly of Gentile Christians; he would scarcely describe the sinful conversation of Israelites as "handed down from your fathers" (Revised Version) without some qualification. Habits are transmitted from fathers to children; habitual custom is made an excuse for many shortcomings, but "unus Pater imitandus" (Bengel).

Parallel Commentaries ...


Greek
[For] you know
εἰδότες (eidotes)
Verb - Perfect Participle Active - Nominative Masculine Plural
Strong's 1492: To know, remember, appreciate.

that
ὅτι (hoti)
Conjunction
Strong's 3754: Neuter of hostis as conjunction; demonstrative, that; causative, because.

it was not with perishable things
φθαρτοῖς (phthartois)
Adjective - Dative Neuter Plural
Strong's 5349: Corruptible, perishable. From phtheiro; decayed, i.e. perishable.

[such as] silver
ἀργυρίῳ (argyriō)
Noun - Dative Neuter Singular
Strong's 694: Neuter of a presumed derivative of arguros; silvery, i.e. cash; specially, a silverling.

or
(ē)
Conjunction
Strong's 2228: Or, than. A primary particle of distinction between two connected terms; disjunctive, or; comparative, than.

gold
χρυσίῳ (chrysiō)
Noun - Dative Neuter Singular
Strong's 5553: A piece of gold, golden ornament. Diminutive of chrusos; a golden article, i.e. Gold plating, ornament, or coin.

that you were redeemed
ἐλυτρώθητε (elytrōthēte)
Verb - Aorist Indicative Passive - 2nd Person Plural
Strong's 3084: To release on receipt of ransom; mid: I redeem, release by paying ransom, liberate. From lutron; to ransom.

from
ἐκ (ek)
Preposition
Strong's 1537: From out, out from among, from, suggesting from the interior outwards. A primary preposition denoting origin, from, out.

the
τῆς (tēs)
Article - Genitive Feminine Singular
Strong's 3588: The, the definite article. Including the feminine he, and the neuter to in all their inflections; the definite article; the.

empty
ματαίας (mataias)
Adjective - Genitive Feminine Singular
Strong's 3152: Vain, unreal, ineffectual, unproductive; practically: godless. From the base of maten; empty, i.e. profitless, or, an idol.

way of life
ἀναστροφῆς (anastrophēs)
Noun - Genitive Feminine Singular
Strong's 391: Dealing with other men, conduct, life, behavior, manner of life. From anastrepho; behavior.

you
ὑμῶν (hymōn)
Personal / Possessive Pronoun - Genitive 2nd Person Plural
Strong's 4771: You. The person pronoun of the second person singular; thou.

inherited from your forefathers,
πατροπαραδότου (patroparadotou)
Adjective - Genitive Feminine Singular
Strong's 3970: Handed down by (from) one's ancestors, inherited. From pater and a derivative of paradidomi; traditionary.


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NT Letters: 1 Peter 1:18 Knowing that you were redeemed not (1 Pet. 1P iP i Pet)
1 Peter 1:17
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