Servants, be in subjection to your masters with all fear; not only to the good and gentle, but also to the wicked.
But also to the froward ... Peter took into account the two kinds of slavemasters, the good and the bad, cautioning the slaves to give loyal and true service to both kinds, because that was God's will.  Up to here, Peter had only vaguely mentioned the suffering coming upon the church, but in this he passed to "a class who were (already) sufferers indeed, the slaves of the household."[48] "Froward is an archaic English word that has a literal meaning of crooked, perverse, unreasonable, or cross-grained."[49] Even such wicked masters were to be honored and faithfully served by the Christians who were slaves.