1 Peter 3:10-12

For he that will love life The three verses are from the LXX. version of Psalms 34:12-16. It is characteristic of St Peter that he thus quotes from the Old Testament without any formula of citation. (See 2 Peter 2:22.) In this case, however, the quotation does not agree with the extant text of the LXX. which gives "What man is he that would fain have life, loving good days?" The English version of the first clause hardly expresses the force of the Greek, which gives literally, he that willeth to love life. The combination may have been chosen to express the strength of the yearning for life in its lower or higher forms which the words imply, or more probably that the object wished for is not mere life, as such, but a life that a man can love, instead of hating with the hatred that is engendered, on the one hand, by the satiety of the pleasure seeker, and on the other, by bitterness and wrath. It need hardly be said that the Apostle uses the words of the Psalmist in a higher meaning. "Life" with him is "life eternal," and the "good days" are not those of outward prosperity, but of the peace that passeth understanding.

let him refrain his tongue from evil The last words were probably those which determined the choice of the quotation. In itself it is, of course, inclusive of the "guile," which follows in the second clause, but here it follows the laws of antithetical parallelism which prevail in Hebrew Poetry, and must be understood of open evil, such as the "railing" which the Apostle had just condemned.