1 Peter 5:9

5:9 Resist him, ¹  strong in your faith, because you know ²  that your brothers and sisters ³  throughout the world ⁴  are enduring ⁵  the same kinds of suffering. ⁶ 

1 Peter 5:12

Final Greetings

5:12 Through Silvanus, ⁷  whom I know to be a faithful brother, ⁸  I have written to you briefly, in order to encourage you and testify ⁹  that this is the true grace of God. Stand fast in it. ¹⁰ 

[5:9]  ¹ tn Grk “whom,” referring to the devil in v. 8. Because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, a new sentence was started here in the translation.

[5:9]  ² tn Grk “knowing,” a participle that usually denotes a reason for the related action.

[5:9]  ³ tn Grk “your brotherhood.” The Greek term “brotherhood” is used in a broad sense to connote familial relationships within the family of God (cf. BDAG 19 s.v. ἀδελφότης 1). Another alternative translation would be “your fellow believers,” though this would weaken the familial connotations. This same word occurs in 2:17; there it has been translated “family of believers.”

[5:9]  ⁴ tn Grk “your brotherhood in the world,” referring to the Christian community worldwide.

[5:9]  ⁵ tn This verb carries the nuance “to accomplish, complete,” emphasizing their faithful endurance in suffering. The verb is passive in Greek (“suffering is being endured by your brotherhood”), but has been translated as an active to give a smoother English style.

[5:9]  ⁶ tn Grk “the same things of sufferings.”

[5:12]  ⁷ sn The phrase Through Silvanus means either that Silvanus was the secretary (amanuensis) who assisted Peter in writing or composing the letter (cf. Rom 16:22) or that he carried the letter to the churches. The latter sense is more likely since this is the meaning of the Greek wording when it is used elsewhere (cf. Acts 15:23; Ignatius, Letter to the Romans 10:1; Letter to the Philadelphians 11:2; Letter to the Smyrnaeans 12:1; Polycarp, Letter to the Philippians 14), though it is perhaps possible that both ideas could be incorporated by this expression. For a detailed argument regarding this issue, see E. R. Richards, “Silvanus Was Not Peter’s Secretary: Theological Bias in Interpreting διὰ Σιλουανοῦ…ἔγραψα,” JETS 43 (September 2000): 417-32.

[5:12]  ⁸ tn Grk “the faithful brother, as I think.”

[5:12]  ⁹ tn These are participles (“encouraging and testifying”) showing purpose. The pronoun object “you” is omitted in Greek but implied by the context.

[5:12]  ¹⁰ tn Grk “in which stand fast.” For emphasis, and due to constraints of contemporary English, this was made a separate sentence in the translation.