1 Peter 3:20

after they were disobedient long ago ¹  when God patiently waited ²  in the days of Noah as an ark was being constructed. In the ark ³  a few, that is eight souls, were delivered through water.

Ge 6:3,5,13; Ge 6:14-22; Ge 7:1-7,13,23; Ge 7:17-23; Ge 8:1,18; Isa 30:18; Mt 7:14; Mt 24:37-39; Lu 12:32; Lu 13:24,25; Lu 17:26-30; Ro 2:4,5; Ro 9:22; 2Co 2:15,16; Eph 5:26; Heb 11:7; 2Pe 2:5; 2Pe 3:15

¹ tn This reflects a Greek participle, literally “having been disobedient formerly,” that refers to the “spirits” in v. 19. Many translations take this as adjectival describing the spirits (“who had once been disobedient”; cf. NASB, NIV, NKJV, NLT, NRSV, TEV), but the grammatical construction strongly favors an adverbial interpretation describing the time of the preaching, as reflected above.

² tn Grk “the patience of God waited.”

³ tn Grk “in which,” referring to the ark; the referent (the ark) has been specified in the translation for clarity. Because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, a new sentence was started here in the translation.