What Does 1 Peter 4:18 Mean in the King James?
And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The verse does not equate difficulty with failed deliverance: the righteous pass through strain, and the question turns toward where those who miss the mark can stand.
THE MEANING
Deliverance can be difficult even for the righteous; hardship alone does not mean they are abandoned. The verse asks where those who refuse reverence and miss the mark can stand when they are exposed.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that righteousness guarantees an effortless life, or that hardship by itself means deliverance has failed.
THE ROOT
σῴζεται
sōzetai
GROWS FROM
σῴζω
sōzō
to rescue, preserve, deliver
“saved” in this verse is sōzetai. The verb keeps deliverance inside the difficult passage: the righteous are not shown as untouched by danger, but as rescued amid it. Difficulty and deliverance coexist in the sentence.
ALSO GROWS
sōtēria: deliverance, rescue
σωτηρία
This noun names the rescue carried by the verb in the verse.
sōtēr: deliverer, rescuer
σωτήρ
This names the one who brings rescue, keeping the act and its source within the same word family.
diasōzō: bring safely through
διασῴζω
This related verb makes explicit the movement through danger that the verse holds together with deliverance.
ἁμαρτωλός
hamartōlos
GROWS FROM
ἁμαρτάνω
hamartanō
to miss, err, go wrong
The root carries the sense of missing or going wrong, so “sinner” holds more than a fixed label; it evokes a life that misses its way. Set beside the ungodly, the verse asks where irreverence and misalignment can stand when exposed.
ALSO GROWS
hamartia: missing, a missing of the mark
ἁμαρτία
This related noun keeps the image of missing visible beneath the English category “sin.”
hamartēma: a miss, an error
ἁμάρτημα
This branch names a particular miss, showing how the root can describe what has gone wrong as well as the person associated with it.
THE PATTERN
When even the righteous pass through deliverance with difficulty, the text uses that nearer case to press where the ungodly can stand.
Behold, the righteous shall be recompensed in the earth: much more the wicked and the sinner.For if they do these things in a green tree, what shall be done in the dry?See that ye refuse not him that speaketh. For if they escaped not who refused him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven:THE THREAD
Behold, the righteous shall be recompensed in the earth: much more the wicked and the sinner.The Greek wording of 1 Peter 4:18 repeats the Septuagint form of this proverb, including its question about the righteous, ungodly, sinner, and where they appear. Set beside the preceding claim that judgment begins with God’s household, the inherited question widens to where each can stand under exposure.
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