1 Thessalonians 2:9Plain English VersionChristian friends, remember what we did when we were there with you. We worked to get money, and while we did that, we told you the good news from God. We worked a lot to get enough money to look after ourselves. We didn’t only work in the day time, but we worked at night time too. So you didn’t have to give us anything. See the chapter |
But I will keep going to Jerusalem anyway. I want to finish the work that our leader Jesus told me to do. I have to tell people the good news, that God is good to us, and that he saves us. I really don’t care about myself, I don’t even care if they kill me, so long as I can tell them that good news.
and he picked me out to be a worker for Jesus Christ. My job is to tell the good news about Jesus to people that are not Jews. After I tell them that good news, God’s spirit works in them to make them good and right, and God is really happy with them. It is like I give them to God, like a really good gift.
Well, I am the one that told you the good news, but I haven’t asked you for anything. And even now, while I write to you, I’m not asking you for anything. I reckon it is better for me to die than to ask you for something. Now I can tell people that I gave you that good news, and I didn’t ask for anything. You got it for nothing, and that makes me happy.
Whenever we talk about you to God, our father, we remember the good things that you do. You properly believe in Jesus Christ, and you love him very much, so you do those good things. And you love other people too, so you work hard to help them. You are really sure that our leader, Jesus Christ, will come back for you, so you keep on following him, no matter what other people do to you.
And you know that before we came to you, we told God’s message to the people in Philippi. Some of those Philippi people got really cheeky to us, and they beat us up. After that, we came to your town, and God made us brave, so we told God’s message to you too. We didn’t get frightened of the cheeky people that tried to stop us.
I thank God for you, Timothy, and I pray for you all the time, in the day time and also at night. I work for God, and I really want to work properly for him so that I always feel good about it. (My father wanted to work for God properly too, and so did my grand-father, and my family that lived a long time ago.)