Grace to you and peace [inner calm and spiritual well-being] from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

[thanking God] for your participation and partnership [both your comforting fellowship and gracious contributions] in [advancing] the good news [regarding salvation] from the first day [you heard it] until now.

Even as it is meet for me to think this of you all, because I have you in my heart; inasmuch as both in my bonds, and in the defence and confirmation of the gospel, ye all are partakers of my grace.

For God beareth me record how greatly I long after you all from the very heart-root in Jesus Christ.

that ye might accept things most excellent, that ye might be pure and such as should hurt no man's conscience, until the day of Christ;

And most of the brothers in the Lord, taking heart because of my chains, are all the stronger to give the word of God without fear.

Though some are preaching Christ out of envy and competition, others do it out of a good heart:

But I am hard-pressed between the two. I have the desire to leave [this world] and be with Christ, for that is far, far better;

Under all circumstances let your lives be worthy of the Good News of the Christ: so that, whether I come and see you, or whether I hear of your affairs at a distance, I may know that you are standing firm, animated by one spirit, and joining with one heart in a common struggle for the Faith taught by the Good News,

You will be engaged in the same hard struggle as that which you once saw me waging, and which you hear that I am waging still.

I entreat you to make my happiness complete--Live together animated by the same spirit and in mutual love, one in heart, animated by one Spirit.

as you hold firmly to the word of life. Then I will be proud when the Messiah returns that I did not run in vain or work hard in vain.

For I have no one else with a heart like his who would take such genuine interest in you,

But you know what Timothy has proved himself to be, and how, like a child working for his father, he worked hard with me in spreading the Good News.

For he longed after you all, and was full of heaviness, because that ye had heard that he had been sick.

Yes, I also ask you, my true partner, to help these women. They have worked hard with me to advance the gospel, along with Clement and the rest of my fellow workers, whose names are in the Book of Life.

Those things, which ye have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, do: and the God of peace shall be with you.