17 But we, brothers and sisters, have been cut off from you for a while, but only physically and not in our hearts, in fact we long to see you even more. 18 We wanted to come and see you all—I, Paul, even tried twice to come—but Satan held us back. 19 Because who is it that encourages and pleases us and that we can brag about? Won’t it be you all there in front of our master Yeshua when he returns, 20 because you all make us both happy and proud.

3 [ref]When we could endure it no longer, we were happy to be left alone in Athens. 2 We sent Timothy, who’s our brother and God’s servant in the messiah’s good message, so that he could strengthen you all and encourage you in your faith 3 so that no one will be upset by these difficulties because you all know that God has appointed us for those. 4 Also, when we were with you all previously, we told you that we were going to be oppressed, and then it happened as you know. 5 So again when I could no longer endure it, I sent Timothy to find out about your faith, just in case you’d been tempted by the tempter and then our work there would have been wasted.

6 [ref]But now Timothy’s returned here to us, telling us the good news about your faith and love, and how you’re always mentioning good things about us and wanting to see us, just like we’d like to see all of you. 7 So even in our distress and sufferings, we’re comforted by your faith, brothers and sisters 8 because now we can live happily since you’re all standing firm in the master. 9 We’re not able to repay God for the thankfulness that we have about you, because we are certainly thrilled in God’s presence because of you all.

10 Day and night we’re strongly requesting God that we’ll be able to go and see you all again, and to teach anything that’s lacking in your faith, 11 and that God our father himself and our master Yeshua might show us how we could get to you all.

12 May the master increase your numbers and give you all an excess of love towards each other and toward everyone, just like we also have toward all of you, 13 in order to strengthen your faith and make you blameless and spotless before our father God, when our master Yeshua comes with all his holy people. May it be so.