As free, and not using your liberty for a cloke of maliciousness, but as the servants of God.
Parallel translations
- WEB as free, and not using your freedom for a cloak of wickedness, but as bondservants of God.
- BSB Live in freedom, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as servants of God.
- NKJV as free, yet not using liberty as a cloak for vice, but as bondservants of God.
- NASB Act as free people, and do not use your freedom as a covering for evil, but use it as bond-servants of God.
- NLT For you are free, yet you are God’s slaves, so don’t use your freedom as an excuse to do evil.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Believers are free, but must not use freedom as a cover for evil; rather they live as God's servants. True Christian liberty serves God rather than excusing sin.
Overview
Peter affirms genuine Christian freedom yet warns against twisting it into license for wrongdoing. The paradox is that believers are simultaneously free and 'bondservants of God,' their liberty expressed through glad service to him. This guards submission to authority from being mere fear and roots it instead in devotion to God.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 15
- Gal 5:13For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another.
- Rom 6:22But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life.
- Rom 6:18Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness.
- 1 Cor 7:22For he that is called in the Lord, being a servant, is the Lord’s freeman: likewise also he that is called, being free, is Christ’s servant.
- Gal 5:1Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.
- Jas 1:25But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.
- Eph 6:6Not with eyeservice, as menpleasers; but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart;
- Jas 2:12So speak ye, and so do, as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty.
- John 8:32–36And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
- Matt 23:13But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in.
- 2 Pet 2:19While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption: for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage.
- 1 Th 2:5For neither at any time used we flattering words, as ye know, nor a cloke of covetousness; God is witness:
- John 15:22If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin: but now they have no cloak for their sin.
- Col 3:24Knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance: for ye serve the Lord Christ.
- Jude 1:4For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.
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The lamb without blemish foreknown before the world, who bore our sins in his body on the tree, by whose wounds we are healed — the Shepherd and Overseer of our souls.
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Original language
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