2 Timothy 4:1Plain English VersionYou know, Jesus Christ will come back, and he will judge everyone. He will judge everyone that is alive at that time, and everyone that is already dead. So listen to what I’m telling you now. God and Jesus Christ are also listening to what I’m saying. It is this. See the chapter |
But the biggest boss didn’t listen to them. He made that man the new boss over the country where that man lived. Some time later, that man went back to his home. Then he got his work-men to come to him, and he asked each one of them about the money that he left with them. He wanted to know how much more money they got for him.
And if we don’t stop doing bad things, he will give us big trouble. He is going to have a big court, and all of us will have to stand in front of the judge. He has already set the date for that. It will be a fair court, and he has picked one man to be the judge. That man died, but God made him alive again. God did that to show everybody that he picked that man to be the big judge.”
God sees everything that everybody does and everything that everybody thinks. Nobody can hide anything from him. One day, God will get Jesus Christ to judge everybody about these things. That is the message that I tell everybody. (The next part, 2:17—3:8, mainly talks to Jewish people, so we have not translated it yet.)
Then that really bad man will come with that power, and he will show himself to everyone. That bad man never does anything that God wants. But then later, Jesus our leader will come and kill him. Jesus will just talk, and his words will kill that man. Jesus will finish him up when he comes with power.
And as you do that, you have to treat everybody the same way. You know, God sees everything I’m writing here, and so does Jesus Christ, and so do God’s angel messengers. They know everything that I am telling you now. I’m saying that you can’t treat your family and friends any better than anybody else.
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.
You know about gold. It is very special. People put that gold into a fire to make it really clean. The fire makes it better, it burns away all the rubbish that isn’t real gold. But even gold will not last for ever. It belongs to this world. Now think about the troubles that come to us. They make us better because they show that we really trust God. If we keep on trusting him, God will say, “You are very special to me. You are much more special to me than gold.” So keep on trusting God, and after Jesus comes again, God will talk to you like that, and he will make you important.
It happened like this. Me and 2 other followers of Jesus, we went with him up on to a special mountain, and God the father, he showed us that Jesus is very great and powerful. God told us this, he said, “This is my son. I love him very much, and I’m very happy with him.” Yes, we ourselves heard the voice of our great God. He talked to us from heaven, and he told us that message.