1 Peter 1:14

as obedient children Literally, children of obedience. The phrase is more or less a Hebraism, like "children of wrath," Ephesians 2:3, or the more closely parallel "children of disobedience" in Ephesians 5:6. The "cursed children," literally, children of a curse, of 2 Peter 2:14, furnishes another example of the Hebrew feeling which looks on the relation of sonship as a parable symbolizing the inheritance of character or status.

not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts The word is the same as that used by St Paul in Romans 12:2, where the English Version gives "conformed." The words "in your ignorance" are in the Greek more closely connected with "lusts," the former lusts that were in your ignorance. We trace an echo of the feeling expressed by St Peter in Acts 3:17, and again by St Paul in Acts 17:30, that the whole life of men, whether Jews or Gentiles, before the revelation of Christ, was a time of ignorance, to be judged as such. The former was at least likely to remember, as he wrote, his Master's words as to "the servant who knew not his lord's will" (Luke 12:48), and who was therefore to be "beaten with few stripes." It does not follow, as some have thought, that he is thinking here, chiefly or exclusively, of those who had been heathens. The words were in their breadth and fulness as true of Jew and Gentile alike as were St Paul's in Romans 11:32.