Let your beauty be not just the outward adorning of braiding the hair, and of wearing jewels of gold, or of putting on fine clothing;
Then the apostle takes up the matter of the wearing of jewelry. The woman’s adornment must not be that of the wearing of gold. As the English translation stands this is an absolute prohibition of the wearing of gold jewelry. But this is not the thought in the Greek text. The word translated "wearing" means literally, "putting around," and here gives the picture of these wives covering their persons with a lavish, conspicuous display of jewelry. The wearing of jewelry is not forbidden the Christian woman, but a gaudy, expensive, elaborate display of the same is, and for the same reasons that made necessary the prohibition of a highly artificial manner of wearing the hair. (Wuest, I Peter 76)