| New King James Version | New Living Translation |
| 1For you yourselves know, brethren, that our coming to you was not in vain. | 1You yourselves know, dear brothers and sisters, that our visit to you was not a failure. |
| 2But even after we had suffered before and were spitefully treated at Philippi, as you know, we were bold in our God to speak to you the gospel of God in much conflict. | 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 did not come from error or uncleanness, nor was it in deceit. | 3So you can see we were not preaching with any deceit or impure motives or trickery. |
| 4But as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, even so we speak, not as pleasing men, but God who tests 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 did we use flattering words, as you know, nor a cloak for 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 did we seek glory from men, either from you or from others, when we might have made demands as apostles of Christ. | 6As for human praise, we have never sought it from you or anyone else. |
| 7But we were gentle among you, just as a nursing mother cherishes her own 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, affectionately longing for you, we were well pleased to impart to you not only the gospel of God, but also our own lives, because you had become dear to us. | 8We loved you so much that we shared with you not only God’s Good News but our own lives, too. |
| 9For you remember, brethren, our labor and toil; for laboring night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you, we preached to 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. |
| 10You are witnesses, and God also, how devoutly and justly and blamelessly we behaved ourselves among you who believe; | 10You yourselves are our witnesses—and so is God—that we were devout and honest and faultless toward all of you believers. |
| 11as you know how we exhorted, and comforted, and charged every one of you, as a father does his own children, | 11And you know that we treated each of you as a father treats his own children. |
| 12that you would walk worthy of God who calls you into His own 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 reason we also thank God without ceasing, because when you received the word of God which you heard from us, you welcomed it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which also effectively works in you who 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 you, brethren, became imitators of the churches of God which are in Judea in Christ Jesus. For you also suffered the same things from your own countrymen, just as they did from the Judeans, | 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 killed both the Lord Jesus and their own prophets, and have persecuted us; and they do not please 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 may be saved, so as always to fill up the measure of their sins; but wrath has 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, having been taken away from you for a short time in presence, not in heart, endeavored more eagerly 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. |
| 18Therefore we wanted to come to you—even I, Paul, time 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? Is it not even you 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 you are our glory and joy. | 20Yes, you are our pride and joy. |
| The Holy Bible, New King James Version, Copyright © 1982 Thomas Nelson. All rights reserved. | 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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