Second Letter to Timothy 1

¹ From Paul, appointed by God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus in his design to promise life in Christ Jesus;

² to Timothy, dear child of mine, wishing you grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and from Christ Jesus our Lord.

³ Night and day I thank God, keeping my conscience clear and remembering my duty to him as my ancestors did, and always I remember you in my prayers; I remember your tears

⁴ and long to see you again to complete my happiness.

⁵ Then I am reminded of the sincere faith which you have; it came first to live in your grandmother Lois, and your mother Eunice, and I have no doubt that it is the same faith in you as well.

⁶ That is why I am reminding you now to fan into a flame the gift that God gave you when I laid my hands on you.

⁷ God’s gift was not a spirit of timidity, but the Spirit of power, and love, and self-control.

⁸ So you are never to be ashamed of witnessing to the Lord, or ashamed of me for being his prisoner; but with me, bear the hardships for the sake of the Good News, relying on the power of God

⁹ who has saved us and called us to be holy – not because of anything we ourselves have done but for his own purpose and by his own grace. This grace had already been granted to us, in Christ Jesus, before the beginning of time,

¹⁰ but it has only been revealed by the Appearing of our saviour Christ Jesus. He abolished death, and he has proclaimed life and immortality through the Good News;

¹¹ and I have been named its herald, its apostle and its teacher.

¹² It is only on account of this that I am experiencing fresh hardships here now ;[*a] but I have not lost confidence, because I know who it is that I have put my trust in, and I have no doubt at all that he is able to take care of all that I have entrusted to him until that Day.

¹³ Keep as your pattern the sound teaching you have heard from me, in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.

¹⁴ You have been trusted to look after something precious; guard it with the help of the Holy Spirit who lives in us.

¹⁵ As you know, Phygelus and Hermogenes and all the others from Asia refuse to have anything more to do with me.

¹⁶ I hope the Lord will be kind to all the family of Onesiphorus, because he has often been a comfort to me and has never been ashamed of my chains.

¹⁷ On the contrary, as soon as he reached Rome, he really searched hard for me and found out where I was.

¹⁸ May it be the Lord’s will that he shall find the Lord’s mercy on that Day. You know better than anyone else how much he helped me at Ephesus.