What Does 1 Peter 3:11 Mean?
Let him turn aside from evil and do good; let him seek wholeness and pursue it.
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
Let him eschew evil, and do good; let him seek peace, and ensue it.THE KEY
The verse gives wholeness a direction: peace is not merely sought but chased.
THE MEANING
Your path takes shape in active turns: away from what harms, toward what is good. Wholeness is something you seek and pursue, so peace here is not passive quiet but a direction you keep moving toward.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that wholeness will arrive only when circumstances change: here, peace is actively pursued.
THE ROOT
διωξάτω
diōxatō
GROWS FROM
διωκ-
diōk-
To chase or pursue.
The verb translated “ensue” is διώκω (diōkō), “pursue”; the same verb can be translated “persecute” when its object is a person. The verse gives wholeness that same active direction: it is chased, not merely preferred.
ALSO GROWS
diōkō: Pursue, chase; also persecute in some contexts.
διώκω
This is the verb behind “ensue,” showing the force of the movement toward peace.
diōgmos: Persecution.
διωγμός
This noun shares the pursuit root and reveals how the same directed chase can be aimed at very different objects.
diōktēs: Persecutor, pursuer.
διώκτης
This word makes the active agent in the root family visible: someone who pursues.
εἰρήνη
eirēnē
GROWS FROM
ειρην-
eirēn-
Peace, wholeness, concord.
The word here is εἰρήνη (eirēnē), carrying the sense of wholeness. Its word family holds both the state of peace and the work of making peace together.
ALSO GROWS
eirēnopoios: Peacemaker.
εἰρηνοποιός
The word makes peace an active practice, not only a condition to enjoy.
eirēnopoieō: Make peace.
εἰρηνοποιέω
This verb shares the peace word and names the work of bringing wholeness into being.
eirēnikos: Peaceful, peaceable.
εἰρηνικός
This adjective shows the same word family describing a quality shaped by wholeness.
THE PATTERN
Wholeness takes shape through turning from harm, practicing good, and actively pursuing peace.
Turn aside from evil and do good; seek wholeness and pursue it.So then let us pursue the things that move toward wholeness, and the things that build one another up.Pursue wholeness with all, and the setting apart, without which no one will perceive the LORD.THE THREAD
Pursue wholeness with all, and the setting apart, without which no one will perceive the LORD.This verse pairs the same Greek words: εἰρήνη (eirēnē), peace or wholeness, and διώκω (diōkō), pursue. Here, the pursuit of wholeness is made relational: it moves among people.
This reading is from Selah Verse.
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