Gaius Commended for His Hospitality

² Beloved, I pray that all may go well with you and that you may be in good health, just as it is well with your soul.

The Christian’s Call and Election

³ His divine power has given us everything needed for life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us by^[a] his own glory and excellence.^{(A) 4} Thus he has given us, through these things, his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may escape from the corruption that is in the world because of lust and may become participants of the divine nature.^{(B) 5} For this very reason, you must make every effort to support your faith with excellence, and excellence with knowledge,^{(C) 6} and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with endurance, and endurance with godliness, ⁷ and godliness with mutual affection, and mutual affection with love. ⁸ For if these things are yours and are increasing among you, they keep you from being ineffective and unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.^{(D) 9} For anyone who lacks these things is blind, suffering from eye disease, forgetful of the cleansing of past sins.^(E)

¹⁸ But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.^[a]

⁸ Above all, maintain constant love for one another, for love covers a multitude of sins.^(A)

⁴ for we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints,^{(A) 5} because of the hope laid up for you in heaven. You have heard of this hope before in the word of the truth, the gospel^{(B) 6} that has come to you. Just as it is bearing fruit and growing in the whole world, so it has been bearing fruit among yourselves from the day you heard it and truly comprehended the grace of God.^(C)

Thanksgiving

³ We must always give thanks to God for you, brothers and sisters, as is right, because your faith is growing abundantly and the love of every one of you for one another is increasing.^(A)

¹³ We also constantly give thanks to God for this, that when you received the word of God that you heard from us you accepted it not as a human word but as what it really is, God’s word, which is also at work in you believers.^{(A) 14} For you, brothers and sisters, became imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus that are in Judea, for you suffered the same things from your own compatriots as they did from the Jews^(B)

Psalm 20

Prayer for Victory

To the leader. A Psalm of David.

³ remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. ⁴ For we know, brothers and sisters beloved by God, that he has chosen you, ⁵ because our message of the gospel came to you not in word only but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction; just as you know what kind of persons we proved to be among you for your sake.^{(A) 6} And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, for in spite of persecution you received the word with joy from the Holy Spirit,^{(B) 7} so that you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia. ⁸ For the word of the Lord has sounded forth from you not only in Macedonia and Achaia but in every place your faith in God has become known, so that we have no need to speak about it.^{(C) 9} For they report about us what kind of welcome we had among you and how you turned to God from idols to serve a living and true God^{(D) 10} and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead—Jesus, who rescues us from the coming wrath.^(E)