At the same time pray for us, too, that God will open a door [of opportunity] to us for the word, to proclaim the mystery of Christ, for which I have been imprisoned;

Epaphras, who is one of you, a servant of the Messiah Jesus, sends you his greetings. He is always wrestling in his prayers for you, so that you may stand mature, completely convinced of the entire will of God.

Paul, Silvanus (Silas), and Timothy,To the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ: Grace to you and peace [inner calm and spiritual well-being from God].

recalling unceasingly before our God and Father your work energized by faith, and your service motivated by love and unwavering hope in [the return of] our Lord Jesus Christ.

and to [look forward and confidently] wait for [the coming of] His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead—Jesus, who [personally] rescues us from the coming wrath [and draws us to Himself, granting us all the privileges and rewards of a new life with Him].

nor did we seek glory and honor from people, neither from you nor from anyone else, though as apostles of Christ we had the power to assert our authority.

even though as apostles of the Messiah we might have made such demands. Instead, we were gentle among you, like a nursing mother tenderly caring for her own children.

For you, brothers, became imitators of the churches of God in Judea that are in union with the Messiah Jesus. You suffered the same persecutions from the people of your own country as they did from those Jews

and send Timothy, our brother who works with us for God in the gospel of the Messiah, to strengthen and encourage you in your faith,

Now may our God and Father Himself, and Jesus our Lord guide our steps to you [by removing the obstacles that stand in our way].

so that He may strengthen and establish your hearts without blame in holiness in the sight of our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all His saints (God’s people).

With a shout of command, with the archangel's call, and with the sound of God's trumpet, the Lord himself will come down from heaven, and the dead who belong to the Messiah will rise first.

For God has not destined us to [incur His] wrath [that is, He did not select us to condemn us], but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ,

In everything be thankful, because this is God's will for you in the Messiah Jesus.

Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you through and through [that is, separate you from profane and vulgar things, make you pure and whole and undamaged—consecrated to Him—set apart for His purpose]; and may your spirit and soul and body be kept complete and [be found] blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.

Paul, Silvanus (Silas), and Timothy,To the church of the Thessalonians in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ:

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

so that the name of our Lord Jesus will be glorified in you [by what you do], and you in Him, according to the [precious] grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now in regard to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to meet Him, we ask you, brothers and sisters,

It was to this end that He called you through our gospel [the good news of Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection], so that you may obtain and share in the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.

May our Lord Jesus, the Messiah himself, and may God our Father, who loved us and by his grace gave us eternal comfort and good hope,

May the Lord direct your hearts to the love of God and to the endurance of the Messiah.

Now we command you, believers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and by His authority, that you withdraw and keep away from every brother or sister who leads an undisciplined life and does not live in accordance with the tradition and teaching that you have received from us.

Now such people we command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ to settle down and work quietly and earn their own food and other necessities [supporting themselves instead of depending on the hospitality of others].

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with all of you.

Paul, an apostle (special messenger, personally chosen representative) of Christ Jesus by the commandment of God our Savior, and of Christ Jesus (the Messiah, the Anointed) our Hope [the fulfillment of our salvation],

To: Timothy, my genuine child in the faith. May grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and the Messiah Jesus, our Lord, be yours!

I thank the Messiah Jesus, our Lord, who gives me strength, that he has considered me faithful and has appointed me to his service.

and the grace of our Lord overflowed toward me, along with the faith and love that are in the Messiah Jesus.

This is a faithful and trustworthy statement, deserving full acceptance and approval, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, among whom I am foremost.

I am the worst of them. But for that very reason I received mercy, so that in me, as the worst sinner, the Messiah Jesus might demonstrate all of his patience as an example for those who would believe in him for eternal life.

There is one God. There is also one mediator between God and human beings a human, the Messiah Jesus.

Those ministers who serve well gain an excellent reputation for themselves and will have great assurance by their faith in the Messiah Jesus.

If you continue to point these things out to the brothers, you will be a good servant of the Messiah Jesus, nourished by the words of the faith and the healthy teaching that you have followed closely.

But do not include younger widows on your list. For whenever their natural desires cause them to lose their devotion to the Messiah, they want to remarry.

They receive condemnation because they have set aside their prior commitment to the Messiah.

With God as my witness, as well as the Messiah Jesus and the chosen angels, I solemnly call on you to carry out these instructions without prejudice, doing nothing on the basis of partiality.

If anyone teaches a different doctrine and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and with the doctrine and teaching which is in agreement with godliness (personal integrity, upright behavior),

Since you are in the presence of God, who gives life to everything, and in the presence of the Messiah Jesus, who gave a good testimony before Pontius Pilate, I solemnly charge you

to keep these commands stainlessly and blamelessly until the appearance of our Lord Jesus, the Messiah.

From: Paul, an apostle of the Messiah Jesus by God's will in keeping with the promise of life that is in the Messiah Jesus.

To: Timothy, my dear child. May grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and the Messiah Jesus our Lord be yours!

He saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our own accomplishments, but according to his own purpose and the grace that was given to us in the Messiah Jesus before time began.

Now, however, that grace has been revealed through the coming of our Savior the Messiah Jesus, who has destroyed death and through the gospel has brought life and release from death into full view.

Hold on to the pattern of healthy teachings that you have heard from me, along with the faith and love that are in the Messiah Jesus.

As for you, my child, be strong by the grace that is in the Messiah Jesus.

Join me in suffering like a good soldier of the Messiah Jesus.

Remember Jesus Christ [the ever-living Lord who has] risen from the dead, [as the prophesied King] descended from David [king of Israel], according to my gospel [the good news that I preach],

For that reason, I endure everything for the sake of those who have been chosen so that they, too, may receive the salvation that is in the Messiah Jesus, along with eternal glory.

This saying is trustworthy: In dying with the Messiah, true life we gain.

Indeed, all who want to live a godly life in union with the Messiah Jesus will be persecuted.

From infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures that are able to give you the wisdom you need for salvation through faith in the Messiah Jesus.

In the presence of God and the Messiah Jesus, who is going to judge those who are living and those who are dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I solemnly appeal to you

Paul, a bond-servant of God and an apostle (special messenger, personally chosen representative) of Jesus Christ, for the faith of God’s chosen ones and [to lead and encourage them to recognize and pursue] the knowledge of the truth which leads to godliness,

To: Titus, a genuine child in the faith that we share. May grace and peace from God the Father and the Messiah, Jesus our Savior, be yours!

awaiting and confidently expecting the [fulfillment of our] blessed hope and the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus,

and poured him out upon us, too, through Jesus the Messiah our Savior true.

Paul, a prisoner [for the sake] of Christ Jesus (the Messiah, the Anointed), and our brother Timothy,

To Philemon our dearly beloved friend and fellow worker,

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

I pray that your partnership in the faith may become effective as you fully acknowledge every blessing that is ours in the Messiah.

For this reason, although in the Messiah I have complete freedom to order you to do what is proper,

I prefer to make my appeal on the basis of love. I, Paul, as an old man and now a prisoner of the Messiah Jesus,

18If he has wronged you in any way or owes you anything, charge it to my account.this favor from you in the Lord. Refresh my heart in the Messiah!

20Yes, brother, I desire this favor from you in the Lord. Refresh my heart in the Messiah!

Greetings to you from Epaphras, my fellow prisoner here in [the cause of] Christ Jesus,

The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit.

but Christ is faithful as a Son over His [Father’s] house. And we are His house if we hold fast our confidence and sense of triumph in our hope [in Christ].

harden not your hearts, as at Meriba and Massa in the desart:

For we [believers] have become partakers of Christ [sharing in all that the Messiah has for us], if only we hold firm our newborn confidence [which originally led us to Him] until the end,

Therefore, while the promise to enter His rest remains, let us fear that none of you should miss it.

So too Christ did not glorify Himself so as to be made a high priest, but He [was exalted and appointed by the One] who said to Him,

“You are My Son,
Today I have begotten (fathered) You [declared Your authority and rule over the nations]”;

Therefore let us get past the elementary stage in the teachings about the Christ, advancing on to maturity and perfection and spiritual completeness, [doing this] without laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God,

But if it only yields a mass of thorns and briers, it is considered worthless, and is in danger of being cursed, and in the end will be destroyed by fire.

For they [the gifts, sacrifices, and ceremonies] deal only with [clean and unclean] food and drink and various ritual washings, [mere] external regulations for the body imposed [to help the worshipers] until the time of reformation [that is, the time of the new order when Christ will establish the reality of what these things foreshadow—a better covenant].

But when Christ appeared as a High Priest of the good things to come [that is, true spiritual worship], He entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not a part of this [material] creation.

how much more will the blood of the Messiah, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse our consciences from dead works to serve the living God?

For this reason He is the Mediator and Negotiator of a new covenant [that is, an entirely new agreement uniting God and man], so that those who have been called [by God] may receive [the fulfillment of] the promised eternal inheritance, since a death has taken place [as the payment] which redeems them from the sins committed under the obsolete first covenant.

For Christ did not enter into a holy place made with hands, a mere copy of the true one, but [He entered] into heaven itself, now to appear in the very presence of God on our behalf;

so also the Messiah, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for Him.

For this reason, the Scriptures say, when the Messiah was about to come into the world: "You did not want sacrifices and offerings, but you prepared a body for me.

By God's will we have been sanctified once and for all through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus, the Messiah.

But our way is not that of those who shrink back to destruction, but [we are] of those who believe [relying on God through faith in Jesus Christ, the Messiah] and by this confident faith preserve the soul.

He considered the reproach of the Christ [that is, the rebuke he would suffer for his faithful obedience to God] to be greater wealth than all the treasures of Egypt; for he looked ahead to the reward [promised by God].

lest there be any fornication, or profane person, as Esau, who for one mess of meat sold his own birthright.

Jesus Christ is [eternally changeless, always] the same yesterday and today and forever.

equip you with every good thing to carry out His will and strengthen you [making you complete and perfect as you ought to be], accomplishing in us that which is pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen.

From: James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus, the Messiah. To: The twelve tribes in the Dispersion. Greetings.

My brothers, do not let your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus, the Messiah, be tainted by favoritism.

You crave, and miss what you want: you envy and covet, but you cannot acquire: you wrangle and fight ??you miss what you want because you do not ask God for it;

From: Peter, an apostle of Jesus, the Messiah.

according to the foreknowledge of God the Father by the sanctifying work of the Spirit to be obedient to Jesus Christ and to be sprinkled with His blood: May grace and peace [that special sense of spiritual well-being] be yours in increasing abundance [as you walk closely with God].

Blessed [gratefully praised and adored] be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant and boundless mercy has caused us to be born again [that is, to be reborn from above—spiritually transformed, renewed, and set apart for His purpose] to an ever-living hope and confident assurance through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,

so that the genuineness of your faith, which is much more precious than gold which is perishable, even though tested and purified by fire, may be found to result in [your] praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

They tried to find out what era or specific time the Spirit of the Messiah in them kept referring to when he predicted the sufferings of the Messiah and the glories that would follow.

So prepare your minds for action, be completely sober [in spirit—steadfast, self-disciplined, spiritually and morally alert], fix your hope completely on the grace [of God] that is coming to you when Jesus Christ is revealed.

but [you were actually purchased] with precious blood, like that of a [sacrificial] lamb unblemished and spotless, the priceless blood of Christ.

you, too, as living stones, are building yourselves up into a spiritual house and a holy priesthood, so that you may offer spiritual sacrifices that are acceptable to God through Jesus, the Messiah.

This is, in fact, what you were called to do, because: The Messiah also suffered for you and left an example for you to follow in his steps.

but honor the Messiah as Lord in your hearts. Always be ready to give a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you.