Chapter 2

¹You know yourselves, brothers, that our visit to you was far from ineffectual. ²We had just been through ill-treatment and insults at Philippi, as you remember, but, in the face of great opposition, we took courage by the help of our God, and told you God’s good news. ³For our appeal does not rest on a delusion, nor spring from any impure motive; there is no fraud about it. ⁴God has thought us fit to be intrusted with the good news, and so we tell it, making no effort to please men, but to please God, who tests our hearts. ⁵We never used flattery, as you know, or found pretexts for making money, as God is our witness. ⁶We never sought praise from men, either from you or anyone else, though as Christ’s apostles we might have stood on our dignity. ⁷We were children when we were with you; we were like a mother nursing her children. ⁸That was the kind of affection we had for you, which made us ready to share with you not only God’s good news but our own lives too, because you were so dear to us. ⁹You remember, brothers, how we toiled and labored. We worked night and day, when we preached the good news to you, in order not to be a burden to any of you. ¹⁰You will testify, and God will, how pure and upright and irreproachable our relations were with you who believed. ¹¹You know how, like a father with his children, we used to urge, encourage, and implore you ¹²to make your lives worthy of God who invites you into his kingdom and his glory.

¹³We for our part constantly thank God for another reason too—because when you received God’s message from our lips, you welcomed it not as the message of men but as the message of God, as it really is, which does its work in the hearts of you believers. ¹⁴For you, brothers, followed the example of God’s churches in Judea that are in union with Christ Jesus, for you in your turn had to bear the same ill-treatment from your neighbors as they did from the Jews, ¹⁵who killed the Lord Jesus and persecuted the prophets and us; who displease God, and in their hostility to all mankind ¹⁶try to keep us from speaking to the heathen so that they may be saved, so as always to fill up the measure of their sins. But God’s wrath has overtaken them at last!

¹⁷For our part, brothers, when we were separated from you for a little while—in person, though not in spirit—we were extremely eager and longed intensely to see you. ¹⁸For we resolved to come to see you—I, Paul, did so again and again—but Satan held us back. ¹⁹For what hope or happiness shall we have or what prize to be proud of in the presence of our Lord Jesus when he comes, except you? ²⁰You are our pride and our joy.