1 Thessalonians 3:5-13

5 For this reason *I* also, no longer able to refrain myself, sent to know your faith, lest perhaps the tempter had tempted you and our labour should be come to nothing.
6 But Timotheus having just come to us from you, and brought to us the glad tidings of your faith and love, and that ye have always good remembrance of us, desiring much to see us, even as we also you;
7 for this reason we have been comforted in you, brethren, in all our distress and tribulation, through your faith,
8 because now we live if *ye* stand firm in [the] Lord.
9 For what thanksgiving can we render to God for you, for all the joy wherewith we rejoice on account of you before our God,
10 night and day beseeching exceedingly to the end that we may see your face, and perfect what is lacking in your faith?
11 But our God and Father himself, and our Lord Jesus, direct our way to you.
12 But you, may the Lord make to exceed and abound in love toward one another, and toward all, even as we also towards you,
13 in order to the confirming of your hearts unblamable in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints.

Footnotes 6

  • [a]. Or 'have good remembrance of us, always desiring much to see.'
  • [b]. Epi with a dative. Here, and in 2Cor. 7.7, the apostle states what gave occasion for comfort to him -- the circumstance, not the cause. It is a similar construction in ver. 9: 'for all the joy.' We can say 'for' perhaps there, but it is the occasion of his thanksgiving; his thanksgiving was conditional; that was necessary to it as a condition precedent.
  • [c]. The one article in Greek refers 'God and Father' to one person, without necessarily referring 'our' to more than Father, which it follows in Greek. 'Now may himself [who is] God and our Father.'
  • [d]. Here 'direct' in Greek is in the singular; God the Father and Christ the Lord forming, so to speak, one in the apostle's mind, though, personally, clearly distinguished.
  • [e]. 'You' is in contrast with 'our ... to you.'
  • [f]. Hagiosune. See Note i at Rom. 1.4.
The Darby Translation is in the public domain.