I pray that your love will keep on growing more and more, together with true knowledge and perfect judgement,

These do so from love, because they know that God has given me the work of defending the gospel.

The others do not proclaim Christ sincerely, but from a spirit of selfish ambition; they think that they will make more trouble for me while I am in prison.

So then, my brothers and sisters, how dear you are to me and how I miss you! How happy you make me, and how proud I am of you! This then, dear brothers and sisters, is how you should stand firm in your life in the Lord.

by whom we are set free, that is, our sins are forgiven.

He has told us of the love that the Spirit has given you.

I do this in order that they may be filled with courage and may be drawn together in love, and so have the full wealth of assurance which true understanding brings. In this way they will know God's secret, which is Christ himself.

When the true message, the Good News, first came to you, you heard about the hope it offers. So your faith and love are based on what you hope for, which is kept safe for you in heaven.

But we belong to the day, and we should be sober. We must wear faith and love as a breastplate, and our hope of salvation as a helmet.

And you have, in fact, behaved like this towards all the brothers and sisters in all Macedonia. So we beg you, our brothers and sisters, to do even more.