knowing that you were redeemed, not with corruptible things, with silver or gold, from the useless way of life handed down from your fathers,
The word "vain" is the translation of a Greek word which has in it the idea of an ineffectual attempt to do something, an unsuccessful effort to attain something. It is found in the sentence from an early secular document, "He vainly relates." Thus, the vain conversation from which the Christian is liberated is his manner of life before he was saved which failed to meet the standards of God. It was a futile life, in that it did not measure up to that for which human life was created, to glorify God. (Wuest, I Peter 42)