1 Peter 1:15

be ye holy in all manner of conversation Better, in every form of conduct. The word "conversation," once used in its true meaning (conversari= living, moving to and fro, with others), has during the last hundred and fifty years settled down almost irrecoverably into a synonym for "talking." Swift is, I believe, the first writer in whom the later meaning takes the place of the earlier. In Cowper's poem "Conversation" it is used without even a reminiscence of the fuller significance of the word. For its use in the Authorized Version, see Psalms 37:14; Psa 50:23; 2 Corinthians 1:12; Galatians 1:13, and many other passages. In the reference to the holiness of God as calling us to reproduce, in our measure, that holiness in our own lives, we have an echo of the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:48). The Greek of the previous clause has a force which the English but imperfectly represents. More literally we might say after the pattern of the Holy One who called you.