| New American Standard Bible 1995 | 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 after we had already suffered and been mistreated in Philippi, as you know, we had the boldness in our God to speak to you the gospel of God amid much opposition. | 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 does not come from error or impurity or by way of deceit; | 3So you can see we were not preaching with any deceit or impure motives or trickery. |
| 4but just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak, not as pleasing men, but God who examines 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 we never came with flattering speech, as you know, nor with a pretext for greed-- 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, even though as apostles of Christ we might have asserted our authority. | 6As for human praise, we have never sought it from you or anyone else. |
| 7But we proved to be gentle among you, as a nursing mother tenderly cares for 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. |
| 8Having so fond an affection 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 very 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 recall, brethren, our labor and hardship, how working night and day so as not to be a burden to any of you, we proclaimed 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 so is God, how devoutly and uprightly and blamelessly we behaved toward you believers; | 10You yourselves are our witnesses—and so is God—that we were devout and honest and faultless toward all of you believers. |
| 11just as you know how we were exhorting and encouraging and imploring each one of you as a father would his own children, | 11And you know that we treated each of you as a father treats his own children. |
| 12so that you would walk in a manner worthy of the 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 constantly thank God that when you received the word of God which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but for what it really is, the word of God, which also performs its work 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 in Christ Jesus that are in Judea, for you also endured the same sufferings at the hands of your own countrymen, even as they did from 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 the prophets, and drove us out. They are not pleasing to God, but hostile 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 |
| 16hindering us from speaking to the Gentiles so that they may be saved; with the result that they always fill up the measure of their sins. But wrath has come upon them to the utmost. | 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 while-- in person, not in spirit-- were all the more eager with great desire to see your face. | 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. |
| 18For we wanted to come to you-- I, Paul, more than once-- and yet Satan hindered us. | 18We wanted very much to come to you, and I, Paul, tried again and again, but Satan prevented us. |
| 19For who is our hope or joy or crown of exultation? Is it not even you, in the presence of our Lord Jesus 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. |
| New American Standard Bible Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation, La Habra, Calif. All rights reserved. For Permission to Quote Information visit //www.lockman.org | 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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