124 Travis B. Williams from doing good, much of the conflict they experience with outsiders may come to an end; however, God will be displeased. If they continue to do good, they will be pleasing to God; yet they will continue to face hostility from their neighbors. Verses 13-14a are a response to this issue, and the solution they provide serves as the basis for the exhortations to follow (3,14b-17). The letter’s response to this problem flows directly out of the previous section and, in particular, out of a quotation from Ps 33 LXX (34 Eng), a text that exerted considerable impact on the theology of 1 Peter40, and one whose “words of encouragement are uncannily appropriate for the historical situation faced by the first-century Christians of Asia Minor”41. In the present context, the psalm serves double-duty. It is used both as the scriptural basis for the exhortation found in 1 Pet 3,9 as well as the point of departure from which a new topic is taken up in 3,13. The rhetorical question with which the discussion opens (“Who will harm you if you are eager to do good?”) gains validity in that it flows out of a scriptural quotation relating God’s economy of reward and punishment, viz., doing good = blessing, doing evil = punishment (3,10-12). This much is fairly easy to discern. The difficulty comes in explaining why the Petrine author chooses to draw this particular conclusion from the psalm. He is certainly not forced into it by the text. In fact, the optimism with which he seems to approach the topic of unjust suffering goes even beyond that of the psalmist. For while the psalmist expects deliverance from the suffering that overtakes him (ῥύομαι + ἐκ)42, the Petrine author claims that righteous suffering will not be experienced. By thus drawing out an unstated and underlying implication and then applying it to the current situation, it would seem that he has purposefully moved the 40 Although the influence of Psa 33 (LXX) may not have been as overwhelming as proposed by W. Bornemann, “Der erste Petrusbrief—eine Taufrede des Silvanus?”, ZNW 19 (1919-20) 143-65, this text was nonetheless very formative on the thought of our author (see E.H. Hauge, “Turn Away from Evil and Do Good!: Reading 1 Peter in Light of Psalm 34”, [Ph.D. diss., Det teologiske menighetsfakultete (Oslo), 2008]; S.A. Woan, “The Psalms in 1 Peter”, in S. Moyise and M.J.J. Menken (eds.), The Psalms in the New Testament [London/ New York 2004] 213-29; idem, “The Use of the Old Testament in 1 Peter, with especial focus on the role of Psalm 34”, [Ph.D. diss., University of Exeter, 2008], although the influence she proposes on the compositional level [i.e., the ‘Janus Behaviour’] is excessive). 41 K.H. Jobes, “Got Milk? Septuagint Psalm 33 and the Interpretation of 1 Peter 2:1-3”, WTJ 63 (2002) 9. 42 While this construction (ῥύομαι + ἐκ) can denote removal from something before it becomes an experience reality (cf. 2 Tim 4,17), in Ps 33,20 (LXX) it denotes a deliverance or separation from something that was a present experience or reality at the time of removal (cf. Rom 7,24; Col 1,13). This is evident from the first half of the verse (“many are the afflictions of the righteous”).