1:9a
Here Peter was not talking about problems that people have with their physical eyes. Instead, he was using metaphors to describe spiritual blindness. When people say that a person is spiritually blind, they mean that he does not understand about God or about living God’s way. One thing that people should understand about living God’s way is that after God has forgiven them for sinning against him, they should live in a way which pleases him. Peter wrote that people who do not understand this are like blind people.
nearsighted to the point of blindness: These are two kinds of eye problems. When a person is nearsighted, he can see clearly only things which are very near to him. When referring to a person’s blindness, this indicates that he is completely unable to see. Good News Translation combines the two:
so short-sighted that he cannot see (Good News Translation)
The most important thing to do when you are translating this part of this verse is to check that the people who will read your translation understand that Peter was writing about spiritual blindness.
1:9b
cleansed from his past sins: The Greek verb here, which Berean Standard Bible translates as cleansed, means “to be made clean.” The New Testament often talks about a Christian being “cleansed” from his sins (see Titus 2:14). Many scholars believe that Peter is here talking about baptism, but it is probably best to translate this verb as “forgiven” in this context. (For more discussion on this word and other possible ways of translating it, see 1:9 in the UBS Handbook Handbook on the Letter from Jude and the Second Letter from Peter.)
Paragraph 1:10–11
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All Scripture quotations in this publication, unless otherwise indicated, are from The Holy Bible, Berean Standard Bible. BSB is produced in cooperation with Bible Hub, Discovery Bible, OpenBible.com, and the Berean Bible Translation Committee.