⁹ God knows how often I pray for you. Day and night I bring you and your needs in prayer to God, whom I serve with all my heart^[a] by spreading the Good News about his Son.

¹⁸ Pray in the Spirit at all times and on every occasion. Stay alert and be persistent in your prayers for all believers everywhere.^[a]

Encouragement to Be Faithful

³ Timothy, I thank God for you—the God I serve with a clear conscience, just as my ancestors did. Night and day I constantly remember you in my prayers.

¹⁶ I have not stopped thanking God for you. I pray for you constantly, ¹⁷ asking God, the glorious Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, to give you spiritual wisdom^[a] and insight so that you might grow in your knowledge of God. ¹⁸ I pray that your hearts will be flooded with light so that you can understand the confident hope he has given to those he called—his holy people who are his rich and glorious inheritance.^[b]

¹⁹ I also pray that you will understand the incredible greatness of God’s power for us who believe him. This is the same mighty power

God’s Selection of Israel

9 With Christ as my witness, I speak with utter truthfulness. My conscience and the Holy Spirit confirm it.

¹⁷ Never stop praying.

²³ Now I call upon God as my witness that I am telling the truth. The reason I didn’t return to Corinth was to spare you from a severe rebuke.

¹⁰ Night and day we pray earnestly for you, asking God to let us see you again to fill the gaps in your faith.

The Faith of the Thessalonian Believers

² We always thank God for all of you and pray for you constantly.

³ For we who worship by the Spirit of God^[a] are the ones who are truly circumcised. We rely on what Christ Jesus has done for us. We put no confidence in human effort,