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good behavior

1 Peter 2:11-12 (JDV)

1 Peter 2:11 Cherished ones, I urge you as strangers and exiles to abstain from longings of the flesh that wage war against the throat.
1 Peter 2:12 Behave yourselves well among the Gentiles so that even though they slander you as evildoers, they will observe your good works and will glorify God on the day of reckoning.

good behavior

Peter encourages his readers to behave themselves well for two reasons here. First, the impulses and desires — longings of the flesh — that often result in bad behavior are actually waging war against their own throats. That is, they are putting them in danger of dying. The Gentiles are looking for reasons to kill them, and any transgression or apparent act of defiance would give them a reason. Christians should avoid giving unbelievers justification for persecuting and destroying them.

The second reason for good behavior is that on the day of reckoning, the Great Overseer of all things will call on these same Gentile witnesses to declare what they saw in us. When these unbelievers testify that we behaved well in spite of their slander, our God will be glorified.