| King James Bible | New Living Translation |
| 1For yourselves, brethren, know our entrance in unto you, that it was not in vain: | 1You yourselves know, dear brothers and sisters, that our visit to you was not a failure. |
| 2But even after that we had suffered before, and were shamefully entreated, as ye know, at Philippi, we were bold in our God to speak unto you the gospel of God with much contention. | 2You know how badly we had been treated at Philippi just before we came to you and how much we suffered there. Yet our God gave us the courage to declare his Good News to you boldly, in spite of great opposition. |
| 3For our exhortation was not of deceit, nor of uncleanness, nor in guile: | 3So you can see we were not preaching with any deceit or impure motives or trickery. |
| 4But as we were allowed of God to be put in trust with the gospel, even so we speak; not as pleasing men, but God, which trieth our hearts. | 4For we speak as messengers approved by God to be entrusted with the Good News. Our purpose is to please God, not people. He alone examines the motives of our hearts. |
| 5For neither at any time used we flattering words, as ye know, nor a cloke of covetousness; God is witness: | 5Never once did we try to win you with flattery, as you well know. And God is our witness that we were not pretending to be your friends just to get your money! |
| 6Nor of men sought we glory, neither of you, nor yet of others, when we might have been burdensome, as the apostles of Christ. | 6As for human praise, we have never sought it from you or anyone else. |
| 7But we were gentle among you, even as a nurse cherisheth her children: | 7As apostles of Christ we certainly had a right to make some demands of you, but instead we were like children among you. Or we were like a mother feeding and caring for her own children. |
| 8So being affectionately desirous of you, we were willing to have imparted unto you, not the gospel of God only, but also our own souls, because ye were dear unto us. | 8We loved you so much that we shared with you not only God’s Good News but our own lives, too. |
| 9For ye remember, brethren, our labour and travail: for labouring night and day, because we would not be chargeable unto any of you, we preached unto you the gospel of God. | 9Don’t you remember, dear brothers and sisters, how hard we worked among you? Night and day we toiled to earn a living so that we would not be a burden to any of you as we preached God’s Good News to you. |
| 10Ye are witnesses, and God also, how holily and justly and unblameably we behaved ourselves among you that believe: | 10You yourselves are our witnesses—and so is God—that we were devout and honest and faultless toward all of you believers. |
| 11As ye know how we exhorted and comforted and charged every one of you, as a father doth his children, | 11And you know that we treated each of you as a father treats his own children. |
| 12That ye would walk worthy of God, who hath called you unto his kingdom and glory. | 12We pleaded with you, encouraged you, and urged you to live your lives in a way that God would consider worthy. For he called you to share in his Kingdom and glory. |
| 13For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe. | 13Therefore, we never stop thanking God that when you received his message from us, you didn’t think of our words as mere human ideas. You accepted what we said as the very word of God—which, of course, it is. And this word continues to work in you who believe. |
| 14For ye, brethren, became followers of the churches of God which in Judaea are in Christ Jesus: for ye also have suffered like things of your own countrymen, even as they have of the Jews: | 14And then, dear brothers and sisters, you suffered persecution from your own countrymen. In this way, you imitated the believers in God’s churches in Judea who, because of their belief in Christ Jesus, suffered from their own people, the Jews. |
| 15Who both killed the Lord Jesus, and their own prophets, and have persecuted us; and they please not God, and are contrary to all men: | 15For some of the Jews killed the prophets, and some even killed the Lord Jesus. Now they have persecuted us, too. They fail to please God and work against all humanity |
| 16Forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they might be saved, to fill up their sins alway: for the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost. | 16as they try to keep us from preaching the Good News of salvation to the Gentiles. By doing this, they continue to pile up their sins. But the anger of God has caught up with them at last. Timothy’s Good Report about the Church |
| 17But we, brethren, being taken from you for a short time in presence, not in heart, endeavoured the more abundantly to see your face with great desire. | 17Dear brothers and sisters, after we were separated from you for a little while (though our hearts never left you), we tried very hard to come back because of our intense longing to see you again. |
| 18Wherefore we would have come unto you, even I Paul, once and again; but Satan hindered us. | 18We wanted very much to come to you, and I, Paul, tried again and again, but Satan prevented us. |
| 19For what is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing? Are not even ye in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at his coming? | 19After all, what gives us hope and joy, and what will be our proud reward and crown as we stand before our Lord Jesus when he returns? It is you! |
| 20For ye are our glory and joy. | 20Yes, you are our pride and joy. |
| King James Bible, text courtesy of BibleProtector.com. | Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved. |
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