These two words at this point in the letter are very significant for understanding Peter’s own purpose in writing this letter. That is, he wrote what he wrote in order to exhort and to declare. The word translated as exhorting pictures (in the Greek) Peter coming alongside his readers to call them to the better way of thinking. The term appears in other places of Scripture to convey the nuance of to summon or to encourage or even to comfort. The term rendered as declaring carries in the Greek the sense of the writer himself having been a witness of what he is declaring. The term, then, underscores that what Peter has written about suffering—and that was considerable—is not theoretical but verified by the apostle’s personal experience. Together the two terms add considerable credibility to what Peter writes; that is, he understands his readers’ pressures and speaks to those pressures from a position of understanding.