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{Our} fellow believers in the Messiah, you are well aware that the time we spent with you was quite productive. 2 As you know, people in the city of Philippi previously caused us to suffer and abused us, but our God made us courageous to speak his good news to you despite how hard we struggled {against those who tried to stop us from} speaking God’s good news to you. 3 Certainly, {when} we encouraged you {to believe God’s good news, we did} not {try} to convince you to believe an incorrect message. {We were} not selfishly motivated. {We did} not {try} to deceive {you with what we said}. 4 Actually, we speak God’s good news since he has examined us and approved that we are trustworthy to do so. When we speak God’s good news, we are not {trying} to please people. Instead, {we are trying} to please God. God is the one who {constantly} examines what motivates us to speak {his good news}. 5 In fact, when we previously came, we did not try to please you by flattering you. You know this is true. {We are} not greedily motivated, so we did not need to say things to try to hide how greedy we are from you. God confirms that this is true! 6 {We did} not {hope that} people would honor {us–}not you and not others{–} 7 {Yet,} we could have made you submit to us, since we are the Messiah’s authorized representatives. Instead, we acted as gentle as infants while we were with you. We acted {as gentle} as a {nurturing} mother {who} comforts her own children. 8 Since we are so fond of you, we delighted to share God’s good news with you. Not only that, but {we} also {delighted to share} our own lives {with you}. {This is} because we started to love you {so much}. 9 Certainly {our} fellow believers, you remember how hard we labored. We kept working during the night and the day. This was so that we would not have to ask any of you to help us financially. Even though we were working, we {still} proclaimed God’s good news to you. 10 Both you and God testify to how faithfully, righteously, and innocently we behaved toward {all of} you who trust {in God}. 11 Each and every one of you knows this personally: {we behaved} the same way {towards you,} as a father {behaves towards} his own children. 12 {We kept} urging and encouraging and testifying that all of you should live the way that God wants his people to live! This is because God {keeps} inviting you to enter his own glorious kingdom.13 We also continually thank God for this reason: you accepted God’s message when we reported it to you. You did not consider it to be merely a human message. {You accepted} the message as if God sent it himself. And God actually gave us the message to report! {We} also {constantly thank God} that for those of you who trust in him, God is effectively changing you to live like his people should. 14-15 {Unbelieving} Jews in Judea not only killed the prophets {long ago}, but they {recently} also killed the Lord Jesus. They also severely mistreated us {apostles}. These unbelieving Jews also made the Judean believers in the Messiah suffer. Certainly, {our} fellow believers in the Messiah, you imitated those assemblies of God in Judea that are united to Jesus the Messiah by suffering the same things from your fellow countrymen. God is thoroughly displeased with these {unbelieving} Jews. They are also enemies of the whole human race! 16 The unbelieving Jews keep trying to stop us from telling {God’s good news to} those people who are not Jews. This is because the unbelieving Jews do not want God to save those who are not Jews. These unbelieving Jews continue to sin so much that they have almost reached the limit that God will allow. Indeed, when they least expect it, God will punish them at the end {of time}!
17 {Our} fellow believers, being so far away deprived {us} from seeing you for a short time. But, although we were far away from you, we did not become less affectionate {towards you}. We became even more eager and deeply desired to see you in person. 18 Indeed, we wanted to visit you. I, Paul, even {tried to come} two times, but {when we tried to come,} Satan opposed us. 19 We wanted to visit because we are so confident {about your trust in God. Being in your presence} also makes us joyful. {Since you are so faithful to God,} we are sure we have achieved what God wanted us to do. {Certainly, we are} also {convinced that we will all be together} in the presence of our Lord Jesus when he comes {again}! 20 Because of you, we glorify {God} and rejoice!