Discovery Box2 Thessalonians 3:7-18
Context3:7 For you know yourselves how you must imitate us, because we did not behave without discipline 1 among you, 3:8 and we did not eat anyone’s food without paying. 2 Instead, in toil and drudgery we worked 3 night and day in order not to burden any of you. 3:9 It was not because we do not have that right, but to give ourselves as an example for you to imitate. 4 3:10 For even when we were with you, we used to give you this command: “If anyone is not willing to work, neither should he eat.” 3:11 For we hear that some among you are living an undisciplined life, 5 not doing their own work but meddling in the work of others. 6 3:12 Now such people we command and urge in the Lord Jesus Christ to work quietly and so provide their own food to eat. 7 3:13 But you, brothers and sisters, 8 do not grow weary in doing what is right. 3:14 But if anyone does not obey our message through this letter, take note of him and do not associate closely with him, so that he may be ashamed. 3:15 Yet do not regard him as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother. 9
3:16 Now may the Lord of peace himself give you peace at all times and in every way. The Lord be with you all. 3:17 I, Paul, write this greeting with my own hand, which is how I write in every letter. 10 3:18 The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. 11
[3:7] 1 tn This is the verbal form of the words occurring in vv. 6 and 11, meaning “to act out of line, in an unruly way.”
[3:8] 2 tn Grk “we did not eat bread freely from anyone.”
[3:8] 3 tn Grk “but working,” as a continuation of the previous sentence. Because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, a new sentence was started with the word “Instead” in the translation.
[3:9] 4 tn Grk “an example for you to imitate us.”
[3:11] 5 tn Grk “walking in an undisciplined way” (“walking” is a common NT idiom for one’s way of life or conduct).
[3:11] 6 tn There is a play on words in the Greek: “working at nothing, but working around,” “not keeping busy but being busybodies.”
[3:12] 7 tn Grk “that by working quietly they may eat their own bread.”
[3:13] 8 tn Grk “brothers.” See note on the phrase “brothers and sisters” in 1:3.
[3:15] 9 tn That is, as a fellow believer.
[3:17] 10 tn Grk “The greeting in my hand, Paul, which is a sign in every letter, thus I write.”
[3:18] 11 tc Most witnesses, including some early and important ones (א2 A D F G Ψ Ï lat sy), conclude this letter with ἀμήν (amhn, “amen”). Such a conclusion is routinely added by scribes to NT books because a few of these books originally had such an ending (cf. Rom 16:27; Gal 6:18; Jude 25). A majority of Greek witnesses have the concluding ἀμήν in every NT book except Acts, James, and 3 John (and even in these books, ἀμήν is found in some witnesses). It is thus a predictable variant. Further, the witnesses for the omission are among the best
