having good behavior among the nations, so in that which they speak against you as evil-doers, they may by your good works, which they see, glorify God in the day of visitation.
that, whereas they speak against you as evildoers: The idea is of "a speaking down to." It is what we would call today as "the great putdown." The unconverted spread bitter lies against the Lord’s people, the Christians, in an attempt to put them down or stigmatize them (1 Peter 2:21). Charges of being politically subversive (Acts 17:6-7), of opposing accepted practices (Acts 19:27), and of abolishing the customs of the people were among those charges leveled against them. Peter then gives valuable instructions on how to deal with false accusations.