---
title: "1 Peter 3 – Catholic Bible (CPDV) & Latin Vulgate · Bless"
url: https://blessbible.app/bible/1-peter/3/
description: "How wives are to behave to their husbands. What ornaments they are to seek.… 1 Peter 3 in the Catholic Public Domain Version, with the Latin Vulgate."
---

# 1 Peter 3

1 Peter 3 is chapter 3 of 5 in the First Letter of Peter. Here are all 22 verses in the Catholic Public Domain Version, with the Latin of the Clementine Vulgate beside them.

> How wives are to behave to their husbands. What ornaments they are to seek. Exhortations to divers Virtues.
>
> — Bp. Richard Challoner, chapter summary

## 1 Peter 3 (Catholic Public Domain Version)

1. Similarly also, wives should be subject to their husbands, so that, even if some do not believe the Word, they may benefit without the Word, through the behavior of these wives,
2. as they consider with fear your chaste behavior.
3. For you, there should be no unnecessary adornment of the hair, or surrounding with gold, or the wearing of ornate clothing.
4. Instead, you should be a hidden person of the heart, with the incorruptibility of a quiet and meek spirit, rich in the sight of God.
5. For in this way, in past times also, holy women adorned themselves, hoping in God, being subject to their own husbands.
6. For so Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord. You are her daughters, well-behaved and unafraid of any disturbance.
7. Similarly, you husbands should live with them in accord with knowledge, bestowing honor on the female as the weaker vessel and as co-heirs of the life of grace, so that your prayers may not be hindered.
8. And finally, may you all be of one mind: compassionate, loving brotherhood, merciful, meek, humble,
9. not repaying evil with evil, nor slander with slander, but, to the contrary, repaying with blessings. For to this you have been called, so that you may possess the inheritance of a blessing.
10. For whoever wants to love life and to see good days should restrain his tongue from evil, and his lips, so that they utter no deceit.
11. Let him turn away from evil, and do good. Let him seek peace, and pursue it.
12. For the eyes of the Lord are upon the just, and his ears are with their prayers, but the countenance of the Lord is upon those who do evil.
13. And who is it who can harm you, if you are zealous in what is good?
14. And yet, even when you suffer something for the sake of justice, you are blessed. So then, do not be afraid with their fear, and do not be disturbed.
15. But sanctify Christ the Lord in your hearts, being always ready to give an explanation to all who ask you the reason for that hope which is in you.
16. But do so with meekness and fear, having a good conscience, so that, in whatever matter they may slander you, they shall be confounded, since they falsely accuse your good behavior in Christ.
17. For it is better to suffer for doing good, if it is the will of God, than for doing evil.
18. For Christ also died once for our sins, the Just One on behalf of the unjust, so that he might offer us to God, having died, certainly, in the flesh, but having been enlivened by the Spirit.
19. And in the Spirit, he preached to those who were in prison, going to those souls
20. who had been unbelieving in past times, while they waited for the patience of God, as in the days of Noah, when the ark was being built. In that ark, a few, that is, eight souls, were saved by water.
21. And now you also are saved, in a similar manner, by baptism, not by the testimony of sordid flesh, but by the examination of a good conscience in God, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
22. He is at the right hand of God, devouring death, so that we may be made heirs to eternal life. And since he has journeyed to heaven, the Angels and powers and virtues are subject to him.

## 1 Peter 3 in Latin (Clementine Vulgate, 1592)

1. Similiter et mulieres subditæ sint viris suis: ut etsi qui non credunt verbo, per mulierem conversationem sine verbo lucrifiant:
2. considerantes in timore castam conversationem vestram.
3. Quarum non sit extrinsecus capillatura, aut circumdatio auri, aut indumenti vestimentorum cultus:
4. sed qui absconditus est cordis homo, in incorruptibilitate quieti, et modesti spiritus, qui est in conspectu Dei locuples.
5. Sic enim aliquando et sanctæ mulieres, sperantes in Deo, ornabant se, subjectæ propriis viris.
6. Sicut Sara obediebat Abrahæ, dominum eum vocans: cujus estis filiæ benefacientes, et non pertimentes ullam perturbationem.
7. Viri similiter cohabitantes secundum scientiam, quasi infirmiori vasculo muliebri impartientes honorem, tamquam et cohæredibus gratiæ vitæ: ut non impediantur orationes vestræ.
8. In fine autem omnes unanimes, compatientes fraternitatis amatores, misericordes, modesti, humiles:
9. non reddentes malum pro malo, nec maledictum pro maledicto, sed e contrario benedicentes: quia in hoc vocati estis, ut benedictionem hæreditate possideatis.
10. Qui enim vult vitam diligere, et dies videre bonos, coërceat linguam suam a malo, et labia ejus ne loquantur dolum.
11. Declinet a malo, et faciat bonum: inquirat pacem, et sequatur eam:
12. quia oculi Domini super justos, et aures ejus in preces eorum: vultus autem Domini super facientes mala.
13. Et quis est qui vobis noceat, si boni æmulatores fueritis?
14. Sed et si quid patimini propter justitiam, beati. Timorem autem eorum ne timueritis, et non conturbemini.
15. Dominum autem Christum sanctificate in cordibus vestris, parati semper ad satisfactionem omni poscenti vos rationem de ea, quæ in vobis est, spe.
16. Sed cum modestia, et timore, conscientiam habentes bonam: ut in eo, quod detrahunt vobis, confundantur, qui calumniantur vestram bonam in Christo conversationem.
17. Melius est enim benefacientes (si voluntas Dei velit) pati, quam malefacientes.
18. Quia et Christus semel pro peccatis nostris mortuus est, justus pro injustis, ut nos offerret Deo, mortificatus quidem carne, vivificatus autem spiritu.
19. In quo et his, qui in carcere erant, spiritibus veniens prædicavit:
20. qui increduli fuerant aliquando, quando exspectabant Dei patientiam in diebus Noë, cum fabricaretur arca: in qua pauci, id est octo animæ, salvæ factæ sunt per aquam.
21. Quod et vos nunc similis formæ salvos fecit baptisma: non carnis depositio sordium, sed conscientiæ bonæ interrogatio in Deum per resurrectionem Jesu Christi.
22. Qui est in dextera Dei, deglutiens mortem ut vitæ æternæ hæredes efficeremur: profectus in cælum subjectis sibi angelis, et potestatibus, et virtutibus.

## Catechism of the Catholic Church

Paragraph numbers and the Catechism's own section headings (never quoted); text at vatican.va.
- CCC ¶ 2204: The Family in God's Plan ([vatican.va index](https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM))
- CCC ¶ 1669: Sacramentals ([vatican.va index](https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM))
- cf. CCC ¶ 632: Christ Descended Into Hell ([vatican.va index](https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM))
- CCC ¶ 1219: Baptism in the Economy of Salvation ([vatican.va index](https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM))
- cf. CCC ¶ 845: The Church Is One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic ([vatican.va index](https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM))
- CCC ¶ 1794: Erroneous Judgment ([vatican.va index](https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM))
- cf. CCC ¶ 1094: The Holy Spirit and the Church in the Liturgy ([vatican.va index](https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM))

## Bishop Challoner's notes

Bp. Richard Challoner, notes on the Douay-Rheims (1750); they comment on its older wording.
- Verse 19: See here a proof of a third place, or middle state of souls: for these spirits in prison, to whom Christ went to preach, after his death, were not in heaven; nor yet in the hell of the damned: because heaven is no prison: and Christ did not go to preach to the damned.
- Verse 21: Baptism is said to be of the like form with the water by which Noe was saved, because the one was a figure of the other.
- Verse 21: As much as to say, that baptism has not its efficacy, in order to salvation, from its washing away any bodily filth or dirt; but from its purging the conscience from sin, when accompanied with suitable dispositions in the party, to answer the interrogations made at that time, with relation to faith, the renouncing of Satan with all his works; and the obedience to God's commandments.

## Read at Mass (US)

- Sun, Feb 14, 2027: First Sunday of Lent — Second Reading, 1 Peter 3:18-22

Citations as published in the USCCB liturgical calendar (principal Mass, first option).

Source: Catholic Public Domain Version (Ronald L. Conte Jr., 2009), public domain; Latin: Clementine Vulgate (1592).