Depart from evil, and do good. seek peace, and pursue it.
⛓ Read Psalm 34 forward — the whole chapter and its afterlife →Where this passage surfaces again, sorted by the strength of the link. Each kind of reuse — formal quotation, deliberate allusion, faint echo, figural pattern — carries its own mark. Follow any reference to read it in place.
Allusion6
A deliberate verbal borrowing without a citation formula.
'Pursue righteousness... and peace' echoes the wisdom imperative to depart from evil, do good, and seek peace and pursue it. The verb 'pursue' applied to peace is a notable verbal contact.
Medium confidenceThe exhortation 'don't imitate that which is evil, but that which is good' restates the psalm's classic two-ways summons to 'depart from evil, and do good.' The antithesis of evil and good as a moral test of belonging to God is the same.
Medium confidence‘Follow after peace with all men’ (v. 14) echoes the psalm's ‘seek peace, and pursue it’ (Ps 34:14) — the same verb of pursuit. Medium volume; the imperative to chase after peace is distinctive enough to register, and Ps 34 is a favored source in early Christian paraenesis.
Medium confidence'Seek peace and pursue it'; the active peacemaking blessed in the seventh beatitude.
Medium confidence'Depart from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it' underlies both 'abhor evil... cling to good' (12:9) and 'be at peace with all men' (12:18); the twin evil-shunning and peace-pursuing maxims are reflected together.
Medium confidence'Let us follow after things which make for peace' (ta tēs eirēnēs diōkōmen, 14:19) closely echoes Psalm 34:14 LXX ('seek peace and pursue it,' zētēson eirēnēn kai diōxon autēn). The verb 'pursue' (diōkō) with 'peace' as object is the distinctive shared phrasing.
Medium confidenceEcho4
A fainter, low-volume reuse, carried by recurrence or thematic coherence.
'Be zealous for / imitators of that which is good' and 'suffer for righteousness' sake' (3:13-14) continue the Psalm 34 program just quoted ('depart from evil and do good'); the do-good ethic flows directly out of the citation, a recurrence binding the pericopes.
Medium confidencePaul's closing principle that 'God has called us in peace' (permitting separation when the unbeliever departs) echoes the sapiential-psalmic imperative to 'seek peace and pursue it.' The peace motif is generic and available; volume is low. Contested and faint.
Low confidence'Depart from evil, and do good; seek peace, and pursue it' resonates with Paul's clustered exhortations to 'always follow after that which is good' and 'be at peace among yourselves' (5:13, 15). A possible sapiential backdrop, faint.
Low confidence'Seek peace and pursue it' supplies the verb of strenuous pursuit Paul reuses in 'I press on/pursue toward the goal.' One of several possible Septuagintal sources for the diolko motif, hence contested.
Low confidence