1 Peter 3:13

And who is he that will harm you The quotation ceases and the Apostle adds the question, the answer to which seems to him a necessary inference from it. The form of the question reminds us of that of Romans 8:33-35, still more perhaps, of Isaiah 50:9, where the LXX. version gives for "condemn the very word which is here rendered "harm." It is not without interest to note that the same word is used of Herod's vexingthe Church in Acts 12:1. St Peter had learnt, in his endurance of the sufferings that then fell on him, that the persecutor has no real power to harm.

if ye be followers of that which is good The better MSS. give the word (zelôtai) which is commonly rendered "zealous for," as in Acts 21:20; Acts 22:3. As a word in frequent use among devout Jews, (as e.g. in the name of the Apostle Simon Zelotes,) it has a special force as addressed to the Church of the Circumcision. "Be zealous," he seems to say to them, "not as Pharisees and Scribes are zealous, as you yourselves were wont to be, for the Law as a moral and ceremonial Code, but for that which is absolutely good." The received reading, "followers," or better, imitators, probably originated in the Greek word for "good" being taken as masculine, and, as so taken, referred to Christ. In that case, "followers" suggested itself as a fitter word (as in 1 Corinthians 4:16; Ephesians 5:1; 1 Thessalonians 1:6) than "zealots."