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πείθω

to persuade

‘to persuade’ is one of 3 main senses fuller range ↓

G3982 Strong's Greek
peíthō Transliteration
/pi'-tho/ Pronunciation
Usage in the GNT 52 appearances

Compare with another word →

About this entry

At a glance — auto-summarized from this page’s data, not written by a person. Every figure links to its source below. This summary describes the numbers; it doesn’t interpret them.

The Greek verb πειθω centers on the idea of “to persuade.” The King James Version usually renders it “persuaded,” while modern versions prefer “having become confident” (unfoldingWord Literal Text) — see the renderings breakdown. Spanning 52 verses in 13 books, it ranks among the moderately common words of the Greek New Testament. Acts dominates its distribution — 17 of 52 verses. Thayer's distinguishes 3 senses for it. Dig into 52-verse concordance and the renderings breakdown below.

Gloss history

Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship

Strong's · 1890
agree
Modern gloss
to persuade
Strong's 1890 sometimes compressed multiple senses — or homonymous roots — under one number, and used 19th-century English phrasing that no longer carries the same connotation. The modern gloss reflects current Thayer scholarship; open the Lexicon Entry tab for the full sense breakdown. Download share card

About this word

Strong's G3982 catalogs a Greek word from the Greek New Testament.

These counts are not copied from any lexicon or concordance. They are computed here, from the morphology-tagged Greek New Testament. What Lemma adds →

52
distinct verses
The word appears in 52 distinct verses.
13 / 27
NT books
The word appears in 13 of 27 New Testament books.
Matthew 27:20
first appearance
The earliest occurrence is in Matthew 27:20.
1 John 3:19
last appearance
The latest occurrence is in 1 John 3:19.
#305
by frequency
Top 500 most frequent Greek words (rank 305 of 5,347 Greek words by occurrence).

View all 52 occurrences in the concordance →


Most concentrated in

By section of the New Testament

  • Gospels 7 · 13%
  • Acts 17 · 33%
  • Pauline Epistles 22 · 42%
  • General Epistles 6 · 12%
  • Revelation 0 · 0%

By traditional corpus

Conventional, traditional groupings — biblical authorship is debated, so this is a traditional corpus grouping, not an authorship claim. Some books belong to more than one corpus (Luke is in both the Gospels and the Lukan corpus, and so on), so these shares overlap and need not total 100%. Each figure is a share of the word’s 52 distinct verses.

  • Pauline corpus 22 verses · 42%
  • Lukan (Luke–Acts) 21 verses · 40%
  • Gospels 7 verses · 13%
  • Hebrews 4 verses · 8%
  • General (Catholic) Epistles 2 verses · 4%
  • Johannine 1 verse · 2%

How translations render this word

Counts come from each version’s own published word-to-Strong’s tagging or interlinear alignment — an approximate guide to how each version renders this word, not a word-level alignment the data otherwise carries. Because each total is that version’s own tagged count, the per-version totals vary from one another and need not match the appearance or distinct-verse counts above. These counts may also differ from a printed concordance because Lemma counts each distinctly tagged rendering and does not collapse phrase taggings into a single head-word total. This is a fixed set of word-tagged versions (KJV, ASV, BSB, ULT) and does not change with the reading translation you choose elsewhere. Each version’s license is shown beside its name below (and on Sources).

  • King James Version: Persuaded 5×, Obey 4×, Am persuaded 3×
  • American Standard Version: Am persuaded 3×, I am persuaded 3×, Obey 3×
  • Berean Standard Bible: I am convinced 3×, Obey 2×, Trusted 2×
  • unfoldingWord Literal Text: Having become confident 5×, Having persuaded 3×, Persuaded 3×

King James Version Public Domain

Renders G3982 across 63 tagged occurrences — most commonly:

  • “Persuaded” 5×
  • “Obey” 4×
  • “Am persuaded” 3×
  • “Believed” 3×
  • “I am persuaded” 3×
  • “Trust” 3×
  • “Confidence” 2×
  • “Having confidence” 2×
  • “He trusted” 2×
  • “Obeyed” 2×
  • “Persuading” 2×
  • “Ye should” 2×

Plus 30 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.

American Standard Version Public Domain

Renders G3982 across 60 tagged occurrences — most commonly:

  • “Am persuaded” 3×
  • “I am persuaded” 3×
  • “Obey” 3×
  • “Confidence” 2×
  • “Have confidence” 2×
  • “Having confidence” 2×
  • “Obeyed” 2×
  • “Persuaded” 2×
  • “Persuading” 2×
  • “Trust” 2×
  • “We are persuaded” 2×

Plus 35 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.

Berean Standard Bible Public Domain

Renders G3982 across 50 tagged occurrences — most commonly:

  • “I am convinced” 3×
  • “Obey” 2×
  • “Trusted” 2×
  • “We are convinced” 2×

Plus 41 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings. Not rendered by a distinct English word in 2 further occurrences.

unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0

Renders G3982 across 61 tagged occurrences — most commonly:

  • “Having become confident” 5×
  • “Having persuaded” 3×
  • “Persuaded” 3×
  • “Persuading” 3×
  • “Were persuaded” 3×
  • “Be persuaded” 2×
  • “Confident” 2×
  • “I am persuaded” 2×
  • “Obey” 2×
  • “That” 2×
  • “We are persuaded” 2×

Plus 32 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.


Senses in Thayer's

The 3 senses Thayer's distinguishes for this word, in lexicon order (not ranked by frequency or importance). The full entry — with sub-senses — is in the Lexicon Entry tab.

  1. persuade
  2. be persuaded
  3. to trust, have confidence, be confident

Word origin

Origin: a primary verb

Part of speech: Verb TDNT: 06:01,8

A primary verb; to convince (by argument true or false); by analogy to pacify or conciliate (by other fair means); reflexively or passively to assent (to evidence or authority) to rely (by inward certainty): - agree assure believe have confidence be (wax) content make friend obey persuade trust yield.

— Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance (1890), public domain.


Forms in the corpus

The 35 distinct written forms G3982 takes in the Greek New Testament, most frequent first — each parse links to that tense’s occurrences in the concordance.

Form Parsing Example Uses
πέπεισμαι pépeismai Verb, Perfect, Passive, Indicative, 1st person, Singular Romans 8:38 4
πεποιθὼς pepoithṑs Verb, Perfect, Active, Participle, Nominative, Singular, Masculine 2 Corinthians 2:3 4
ἐπείθοντο epeíthonto Verb, Imperfect, Passive, Indicative, 3rd person, Plural Acts 5:36 3
πέποιθα pépoitha Verb, Perfect, Active, Indicative, 1st person, Singular Galatians 5:10 2
πέποιθεν pépoithen Verb, Perfect, Active, Indicative, 3rd person, Singular Matthew 27:43 2
πείθεσθαι peíthesthai Verb, Present, Passive, Infinitive Galatians 5:7 2
πείθων peíthōn Verb, Present, Active, Participle, Nominative, Singular, Masculine Acts 19:8 2
πείσαντες peísantes Verb, Aorist, Active, Participle, Nominative, Plural, Masculine Acts 12:20 2
πείσομεν peísomen Verb, Future, Active, Indicative, 1st person, Plural Matthew 28:14 2
πεποιθότας pepoithótas Verb, Perfect, Active, Participle, Accusative, Plural, Masculine Luke 18:9 2
πεποιθότες pepoithótes Verb, Perfect, Active, Participle, Nominative, Plural, Masculine 2 Corinthians 1:9 2
ἐπείσθησαν epeísthēsan Verb, Aorist, Passive, Indicative, 3rd person, Plural Acts 5:40 2
Πέπεισμαι Pépeismai Verb, Perfect, Passive, Indicative, 1st person, Singular Romans 15:14 1
Πείθεσθε Peíthesthe Verb, Present, Middle, Imperative, 2nd person, Plural Hebrews 13:17 1
Πεπείσμεθα Pepeísmetha Verb, Perfect, Passive, Indicative, 1st person, Plural Hebrews 6:9 1
Πεποιθὼς Pepoithṑs Verb, Perfect, Active, Participle, Nominative, Singular, Masculine Philemon 1:21 1
πέποιθάς pépoithás Verb, Perfect, Active, Indicative, 2nd person, Singular Romans 2:19 1
πείθεις peítheis Verb, Present, Active, Indicative, 2nd person, Singular Acts 26:28 1
πείθομαι peíthomai Verb, Present, Passive, Indicative, 1st person, Singular Acts 26:26 1
πείθομεν peíthomen Verb, Present, Active, Indicative, 1st person, Plural 2 Corinthians 5:11 1
πείθω peíthō Verb, Present, Active, Indicative, 1st person, Singular Galatians 1:10 1
πείσας peísas Verb, Aorist, Active, Participle, Nominative, Singular, Masculine Acts 19:26 1
πειθομένοις peithoménois Verb, Present, Middle, Participle, Dative, Plural, Masculine Romans 2:8 1
πειθομένου peithoménou Verb, Present, Passive, Participle, Genitive, Singular, Masculine Acts 21:14 1
πειθόμεθα peithómetha Verb, Present, Passive, Indicative, 1st person, Plural Hebrews 13:18 1
πεισθήσονται peisthḗsontai Verb, Future, Passive, Indicative, 3rd person, Plural Luke 16:31 1
πεισθῇς peisthē̂s Verb, Aorist, Passive, Subjunctive, 2nd person, Singular Acts 23:21 1
πεπεισμένος pepeisménos Verb, Perfect, Passive, Participle, Nominative, Singular, Masculine Luke 20:6 1
πεποίθαμεν pepoíthamen Verb, Perfect, Active, Indicative, 1st person, Plural 2 Thessalonians 3:4 1
πεποιθέναι pepoithénai Verb, Perfect, Active, Infinitive Philippians 3:4 1
ἐπείθετο epeítheto Verb, Imperfect, Passive, Indicative, 3rd person, Singular Acts 27:11 1
ἐπεποίθει epepoíthei Verb, Pluperfect, Active, Indicative, 3rd person, Singular Luke 11:22 1
ἔπειθέν épeithén Verb, Imperfect, Active, Indicative, 3rd person, Singular Acts 18:4 1
ἔπειθον épeithon Verb, Imperfect, Active, Indicative, 3rd person, Plural Acts 13:43 1
ἔπεισαν épeisan Verb, Aorist, Active, Indicative, 3rd person, Plural Matthew 27:20 1

Same root — word family

Other Thayer's entries built from the same root as G3982, grouped by Strong’s listed origin. These share a root / origin per the lexicon — not necessarily a shared meaning. Each links to that word’s own entry.

Derived from this word

Compare all same-root words → Showing 4 of 8 — not the complete family. They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.


Septuagint usage

The same Greek word πειθω appears 128 times in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), across 121 verses in 22 books.

128
LXX occurrences
Tagged occurrences of this Greek word in the Septuagint.
121
verses
Distinct Septuagint verses containing this word.
22 / 39
OT books
The word appears in 22 of the 39 Old Testament books.

Sample Septuagint occurrences

Septuagint occurrences (same lexeme)

Every verse where the same Strong’s number (G3982) appears in the Greek Septuagint — showing the first 50 of 121. Verse text shown in the World English Bible for context; the Greek form is the matched word — the English is not keyword-highlighted.

These are occurrences of the same Greek lexeme (G3982) in the Septuagint — not a translation of any one Hebrew word. The store carries no word-level Hebrew↔Greek alignment, so no Hebrew original is asserted here. Counts come from the recovered LXX Strong's tagging — high-frequency vocabulary is well covered, while rare or late forms may be untagged — so they reflect tagged occurrences and may slightly undercount.

Reading settings

Reading text

Shown beneath each verse's original-language words.

Old Testament
Old Testament edition

Read the OT as the Masoretic Hebrew (MT) or the Greek Septuagint (LXX).

English shown for the Greek Septuagint (in the Hebrew ↔ Greek comparison).

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