1 Peter 4:4

4 They are surprised that you do not join them in their reckless, wild living, and they heap abuse on you.

1 Peter 4:4 in Other Translations

4 Wherein they think it strange that ye run not with them to the same excess of riot, speaking evil of you:

4 With respect to this they are surprised when you do not join them in the same flood of debauchery, and they malign you;

4 Of course, your former friends are surprised when you no longer plunge into the flood of wild and destructive things they do. So they slander you.

4 Of course, your old friends don't understand why you don't join in with the old gang anymore. But you don't have to give an account to them.

4 wherein they think strange that ye run not with [them] into the same excess of riot, speaking evil of [you]:

4 Unbelievers insult you now because they are surprised that you no longer join them in the same excesses of wild living.

4 In regard to this, they are surprised that you don't plunge with them into the same flood of dissipation-and they slander you.

4 Ungodly people think that it's strange when you no longer join them in what they do. They want you to rush into the same flood of wasteful living. So they say bad things about you.

1 Peter 4:4 Meaning and Commentary

1 Peter 4:4

Wherein they think it strange
Here the apostle points out what the saints must expect from the men of the world, by living a different life; and he chooses to mention it, to prevent discouragements, and that they might not be uneasy and distressed when they observed it; as that they would wonder at the change in their conversations, and look on it as something unusual, new, and unheard of, and treat them as strangers, yea, as enemies, on account of it:

that you run not with them into the same excess of riot;
to their luxurious entertainments, their Bacchanalian feasts, and that profusion of lasciviousness, luxury, intemperance, and wickedness of all sorts, which, with so much eagerness of mind, and bodily haste, they rushed into; being amazed that they should not have the same taste for these things as before, and as themselves now had; and wondering how it was possible for them to abstain from them, and what that should be that should give them a different cast of mind, and turn of action:

speaking evil of you;
and so the Syriac and Arabic versions supply "you" as we do; but in the Greek text it is only, "speaking evil of, or blaspheming"; God, Christ, religion, the Gospel, and the truths of it, and all good men; hating them because different from them, and because their lives reprove and condemn them; charging them with incivility, unsociableness, preciseness, and hypocrisy.

1 Peter 4:4 In-Context

2 As a result, they do not live the rest of their earthly lives for evil human desires, but rather for the will of God.

3 For you have spent enough time in the past doing what pagans choose to do—living in debauchery, lust, drunkenness, orgies, carousing and detestable idolatry.

4 They are surprised that you do not join them in their reckless, wild living, and they heap abuse on you.

5 But they will have to give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead.

6 For this is the reason the gospel was preached even to those who are now dead, so that they might be judged according to human standards in regard to the body, but live according to God in regard to the spirit.

Cross References

• 1. 1 Peter 3:16