12 So I tell everyone about him. Those people that don’t like Jesus, they make trouble for me. But I know God, and I believe in him, so I don’t feel shame when I get that trouble. I know that he will look after me right up until the day when Jesus will come back.
12 For the which cause I also suffer these things: nevertheless I am not ashamed: for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day.
12 And this is why I am suffering as I do. Still I am not ashamed, for I know (perceive, have knowledge of, and am acquainted with) Him Whom I have believed (adhered to and trusted in and relied on), and I am [positively] persuaded that He is able to guard and keep that which has been entrusted to me and which I have committed [to Him] until that day.
12 For which cause I suffer also these things: yet I am not ashamed; for I know him whom I have believed, and I am persuaded that he is able to guard that which I have committed unto him against that day.
12 This is also why I’m suffering the way I do, but I’m not ashamed. I know the one in whom I’ve placed my trust. I’m convinced that God is powerful enough to protect what he has placed in my trust until that day.
12 For this reason, I also suffer these things. But I am not confounded. For I know in whom I have believed, and I am certain that he has the power to preserve what was entrusted to me, unto that day.
You have to tell people about our leader Jesus. Don’t feel shame about that. And don’t feel shame about me because I’m in jail. I’m here because I told people about Jesus. But don’t worry. Just go ahead anyway and tell people about our leader Jesus. And then maybe some people might make trouble for you, just like they made trouble for me. But God will make you strong, and you will not worry about that trouble.
All right, I’ll finish my letter now. God can keep you safe so that you don’t go the wrong way. He can make you good and clean inside yourself, so that there aren’t any bad parts in you. Yes, one day, he will make you properly good, so that he can bring you close to himself. You will come near to the beautiful light that shines from him. He is very great and good, and you will stand with him. And you will be very, very happy.
So if God lets you Christians get trouble, keep on trusting him, and keep on doing whatever is right. He made you, and he promised to save you, and he does everything that he promises to do, so you can trust him to do that.
I followed Jesus all the way, and very soon he will give me a prize, like a sportsman gets a medal after he wins. Jesus will make me properly good, that will be my prize. Jesus, our leader, is a fair judge, and he has got that prize ready to give me on the day that he comes back. And not just to me. He will give that prize to everybody that wants him to come back again, he will make them all properly good.
All right, Timothy, God gave you his good message, so you have to look after it properly. Make sure nobody changes it around. There are some people that talk a lot in a stupid way, and they say bad things about God. Don’t listen to them. They might reckon they know all about it, and they might say that you are wrong, but really, they are the ones that are wrong.
I don’t feel any shame about God’s good news. It is a really good story because it has God’s power in it. Whenever people believe this good news, God saves them. It is the same for everybody, for Jewish people and for people that are not Jews.
God has a lot of power, and he looks after us, all of us that trust him. He will look after us until the last day. Then he will show everyone that he saved us.
He will change these weak bodies that we have now, and he will make them into new bodies. They will be like the wonderful body that he has now. Jesus can do that because he is really powerful. He is so powerful that he can be the boss over everything.
But some of them don’t like me telling everybody that message, so they make trouble for me. They even treat me like a criminal. They tied me up and put me here in this jail. But nobody can tie up God’s word or keep it in jail. Anyone out there now can still go around and tell people God’s message.
And I really want to know Jesus Christ properly. And I want God’s power to be in my life, the same power he used to make Jesus alive again. And I even want to share the pain that Jesus got. I will even let his enemies kill me, like they killed him.
Yes, they are useless. But I know Jesus Christ. That is the only important thing. He is my leader, and he is really special to me now. I have left every other way, and I only follow him now. I reckon all those other things are rubbish, and I have chucked them away, so that I can join up with Jesus Christ,
One day, Jesus Christ will come back, and then God will show which workers did a good job, like the fire in the picture story shows if part of the house is good or not.
I am not asking you to take my followers away from the people that belong to this world. I am asking you to keep them safe from the devil, the boss over the bad spirits.
And people everywhere will believe that he can save them.” (We have not yet translated 12:22-37. You can read those stories and messages in Mark 3:20-30 and Luke 6:43-45.)
They try to stop us telling everyone that God can save people that are not Jewish. That Jewish mob did a lot of bad things in the past, and they are also doing those bad things now, so they make God angry, and he is going to punish them.
I want to be brave and stay strong for Jesus Christ, just like I always am. Then I will not feel shame. Maybe they will kill me, or maybe they will let me stay alive. It doesn’t matter. I want to stay strong for Jesus Christ and show everyone how great he is, no matter what.
But Paul said, “Stop crying and trying to make me change my mind. Stop telling me not to go to Jerusalem. I work for our leader Jesus, so I’m ready for people to put me in prison in Jerusalem, and I’m even ready for them to kill me.”
But the Jewish leaders made trouble for Paul and Barnabas. There were some important women in that town that were not Jews, but they respected God. And there were some important men there too. The Jewish leaders told them bad things about Paul and Barnabas, so those important people made big trouble for Paul and Barnabas. They made so much trouble that Paul and Barnabas had to leave that town.
Paul and Barnabas were not frightened of them. They said, “God sent us to tell his message to you Jews first. But you didn’t listen to it, and that shows us that you don’t want to live with God for ever. So now we will tell God’s message to people that are not Jews.
Listen. God is my father, and he is the one that sent me here. He brings people to me, and they are the only people that can come to me. They are the people that I will make alive again on the day when the world will finish up.
But, Christian friends, you aren’t like other people that don’t listen to what God says. It is like they are living in the dark all the time. When that trouble day comes, you will not get a shock, like people do when a robber comes to steal their things at night.
One day, God will get me to judge everybody, and some people will say to me, ‘You are my leader and my boss. We used your power to tell people your messages, and to force bad spirits out of people, and to do a lot of other great things.’
God will keep you believing properly in our leader Jesus Christ, and you will stay strong for him until the day when he will come back from heaven. At that time, nobody will be able to blame you or say that you did anything wrong.
But Onesiforus wasn’t like that. He came here to Rome and looked everywhere for me. And when he found me here in jail, he didn’t feel shame. He often came and cheered me up. So I pray that Jesus, our leader, will be really good to his family. And you already know about that time that he was over there in Ephesus with me, and he helped me in lots of ways. One day our leader will judge everyone, and I pray that he will be good to Onesiforus and his family on that day.
That is all very true. I want you to teach those things strongly. I want you to be sure that people understand those things. Then the people that believe God’s message will think more about doing good things. And those good things will help everyone.