The first part of the verse is literally “and if you call Father the one….” “If” can be taken either to mean “even if” (compare New International Version “since”), which means that it is a known fact that the Christians were indeed doing this, or a conditional “if,” meaning that the writer does not know this to be a fact. Most translations take it with the first meaning; for the second, see New English Bible “If you say Father” (compare Jerusalem Bible, Phillips). Most commentators take the whole clause to refer to prayer; some even suggest that this is a reference to the Christians praying together the Lord’s Prayer which begins with “Our Father.” Since “call” in English is ambiguous, and does not refer specifically to the act of prayer, the Good News Translation has added when you pray to God to make the reference to prayer explicit. Other translations have various ways of capturing this sense, for example, Barclay “The God whom in your prayers you call Father”; Knox “You appeal to God as your father”; New American Bible “In prayer you call upon a Father.”
In some languages it may be necessary to render You call him Father in a form of direct address, for example, “you say to God, Our Father.” It may be useful in such circumstances to change the order of the first two clauses so that the temporal clause when you pray to God occurs first, for example, “when you pray to God, you call him, Our Father.” If the first two clauses are left as indirect discourse, then it may be necessary to change somewhat the specific kind of reference, so that in the first clause one will use the term “God,” and the pronoun in the second clause, for example, “you call God your father when you pray to him.” If the order is reversed, “when you pray to God, you call him your father,” it may then be necessary to start the following clause as a separate sentence, for example, “He is the one who judges all people….”
God is described as one who judges all people by the same standard (literally “who impartially judges each one”). This simply means that God does not play favorites, and that all people fall under the same judgment in so far as God is concerned. In other parts of the New Testament, the impartiality of God is related to his dealings with both Jews and Gentiles; here, perhaps the reference is that those who call God “Father” are in no way given preferential treatment by him. On the contrary, they are judged, as all other people are, according to what each one has done. It should be noted that the verb tense for judge is present, and not past or future, for the focus is on God’s essential function as judge, and not on any specific acts of judgment in the past or in the future (Beare).
A literal rendering of who judges all people by the same standard can result in serious misunderstanding, for it could mean in some languages that God judges all people in the same way, that is to say, by condemning them all alike. In a number of instances it may therefore be important to translate by the same standard by a negative expression, for example, “when God judges all people, he does not show special favors to anyone” or in a figurative sense, “God doesn’t close one eye when he looks at some people’s sins” or “… judges some people’s sins.”
According to what each one has done may then be expressed in some instances as providing the contrast to favoritism, for example, “but he judges each person by thinking about what that person has done” or “what that person has done determines how God will judge him.”
It is because God is both Father and Judge that the readers are exhorted to spend the rest of your lives here on earth in reverence for him. The rest of your lives here on earth is literally “during the time of your stay among strangers.” This goes back to 1.1 and looks forward to 2.11. The expression refers to the Christian’s period of life on earth, viewed as a temporary existence, since his true home is in heaven with the Lord. Many other translations restructure the expression in a way similar to what the Good News Translation has done (for example, Phillips “the time of your stay here on earth”; Biblia Dios Habla Hoy “all the time you live in this world”).
The rest of your lives here on earth may frequently be rendered as “the remaining days you live here on earth” or “however many will be your days here on earth.”
Reverence is literally “fear,” but here the word connotes not fear but “awe,” “respect.” This is usually the attitude one has towards God in worship; in this verse, however, this attitude is taken as valid for the whole Christian life. A literal translation of the Greek term often rendered “fear” can be seriously misleading because it would suggest that the Christians were to be “afraid of God,” while in reality it is the reconciliation with God through Jesus Christ which eliminates this fear. There may not be in a language, however, a wholly appropriate word for reverence, but some such expression as “deep concern for” or “great respect for” may occur. Sometimes reverence may be expressed figuratively as “stand before with your heart fluttering.”
Spend … your time is literally “conduct yourself,” referring specifically to one’s relationship to God (as in Good News Translation, New English Bible), or in a wider sense, to the whole way of life of the Christian as he relates to God and to others (as in Jerusalem Bible, New International Version, Moffatt, New American Bible, Barclay). The way one understands this of course affects one’s understanding of the implied object of reverence, which the Good News Translation understands to be God (also New English Bible). Many other translations, however, understand reverence to refer to the conduct itself, for example, New American Bible “conduct yourselves reverently”; Barclay “spend your time … in reverent living”; Moffatt “to be reverend in your conduct” (however, compare Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch “take his will seriously”). Spend … your time may simply be rendered as “live” or “behave” or even “do whatever you do.”
Quoted with permission from Arichea, Daniel C. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on The First Letter from Peter. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1980. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .