What Does 1 Peter 3:10 Mean?
For the one who wills to love life and see good days, let him stop his tongue from evil, and his lips from speaking bait.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
For he that will love life, and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips that they speak no guile:THE KEY
The word translated “guile” can carry the image of bait, linking love of life with refusing to lure another through speech.
THE MEANING
Your desire to love life and see good days is joined to the words you release. Here, the tongue ceases from harm, and the lips refuse speech that lures through deception. The verse presents speech as part of the texture of life, not a separate concern.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a good life is separate from the way your speech affects others.
THE ROOT
δόλον
dolon
GROWS FROM
δολ-
dol-
Deceit or craft, with an underlying image of a decoy or bait.
English “guile” names deceit, while the Greek can also suggest bait that draws someone toward a trap. The verse links loving life with speech that does not use deception as a lure.
ALSO GROWS
dolioō: To deceive or deal deceitfully.
δολιόω
This verb shows the same root at work as an action: guile is something speech can do.
dolios: Deceitful or crafty.
δόλιος
This adjective carries the root’s sense of guile as a quality that can shape how someone acts.
παυσάτω
pausatō
GROWS FROM
παυ-
pau-
To stop or cease.
The word is a form of παύω (pauō), meaning “stop” or “cease.” It pictures speech ceasing from harm, rather than treating silence as the goal.
ALSO GROWS
pauō: To stop or cease.
παύω
This is the verb’s basic form and clarifies the action translated “refrain.”
katapauō: To bring to rest or cause to cease.
καταπαύω
This related compound preserves the idea of bringing something to a stop.
γλῶσσαν
glōssan
GROWS FROM
γλωσσ-
glōss-
Tongue; also language or speech.
The Greek word γλῶσσα (glōssa) names both the bodily tongue and a language. The verse holds the speaking organ and the meaning carried by speech together.
ALSO GROWS
glōssa: Tongue as a bodily organ.
γλῶσσα
This is the sense heard in “refrain his tongue.”
glōssais: Tongues or languages; the plural dative form of the same word.
γλώσσαις
Its use for languages shows that the same word can name both the organ and the speech it produces.
THE PATTERN
Life and good days are bound to speech that refuses harm and deception.
Death and life are in the hand of the tongue, and those who love it eat its fruit.Out of the same mouth comes forth blessing and curse. My brothers, these things ought not to be so.THE THREAD
Guard your tongue from evil, and your lips from speaking deceit.The Greek form of Psalm 34:13 carries the same words for tongue and guile: γλῶσσα (glōssa, tongue or language) and δόλος (dolos, deceit or guile). Their shared roots place restrained speech inside the verse’s picture of loving life and seeing good days.
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