Study Desk

Masters, grant your slaves justice and fairness, knowing that you also have a Master in heaven.

praying at the same time for us as well, that God will open up to us a door for the word, so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ, for which I have also been imprisoned;

Epaphras, who is one of your own, a bond-servant of Christ Jesus, sends you his greetings, always striving earnestly for you in his prayers, that you may stand mature and fully assured in all the will of God.

For I testify for him that he has a deep concern for you and for those who are in Laodicea and Hierapolis.

For they themselves report about us as to the kind of reception we had with you, and how you turned to God from idols to serve a living and true God,

For we never came with flattering speech, as you know, nor with a pretext for greed—God is our witness—

But we proved to be gentle among you. As a nursing mother tenderly cares for her own children,

in the same way we had a fond affection for you and were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God, but also our own lives, because you had become very dear to us.

For you recall, brothers and sisters, our labor and hardship: it was by working night and day so as not to be a burden to any of you, that we proclaimed to you the gospel of God.

just as you know how we were exhorting and encouraging and imploring each one of you as a father would his own children,

so that you would walk in a manner worthy of the God who calls you into His own kingdom and glory.

But we, brothers and sisters, having been orphaned from you by absence for a short while—in person, not in spirit—were all the more eager with great desire to see your face.

and to make it your ambition to lead a quiet life and attend to your own business and work with your hands, just as we instructed you,

For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.

For you yourselves know full well that the day of the Lord is coming just like a thief in the night.

While they are saying, "Peace and safety!" then sudden destruction will come upon them like labor pains upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape.

But you, brothers and sisters, are not in darkness, so that the day would overtake you like a thief;

But since we are of the day, let's be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet, the hope of salvation.

Greet all the brothers and sisters with a holy kiss.

As a result, we ourselves speak proudly of you among the churches of God for your perseverance and faith in the midst of all your persecutions and afflictions which you endure.