For we remember before our God and Father how you put your faith into practice, how your love made you work so hard, and how your hope in our Lord Jesus Christ is firm.

And there is another reason why we always give thanks to God. When we brought you God's message, you heard it and accepted it, not as a message from human beings but as God's message, which indeed it is. For God is at work in you who believe.

After all, it is you---you, no less than others!---who are our hope, our joy, and our reason for boasting of our victory in the presence of our Lord Jesus when he comes.

Now we can give thanks to our God for you. We thank him for the joy we have in his presence because of you.

How happy I was to find that some of your children live in the truth, just as the Father commanded us.

I was so happy when some Christians arrived and told me how faithful you are to the truth---just as you always live in the truth.

My dear friend, you are so faithful in the work you do for other Christians, even when they are strangers.

So, my brother, please do me this favor for the Lord's sake; as a brother in Christ, cheer me up!

That is why we were encouraged. Not only were we encouraged; how happy Titus made us with his happiness over the way in which all of you helped to cheer him up!

May the Lord show mercy to the family of Onesiphorus, because he cheered me up many times. He was not ashamed that I am in prison,