Paragraph 4:9–12

God had enabled the Thessalonians to love one another. Paul urged them to do so even more and also to behave in an orderly manner. Even non-believers would respect them when they behaved like that.

4:9a

Now: Here Paul began a new paragraph and told the Thessalonians why they needed to behave in a righteous manner. After warning them how not to behave in 4:3–8, he began to tell them how they should behave. The Berean Standard Bible has used the word Now to signal that this is a new paragraph. Be careful not to translate it literally as a time word. Instead, use whatever construction is natural in your language for a new paragraph.

about brotherly love: This means love for other believers.

4:9b

because: In this part of the verse Paul told the Thessalonians why he had no need to write about loving each other (4:9a). It was because God himself had taught them about this love.

you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another: Paul did not say how God taught the Thessalonians to love one another. It may have been by the Holy Spirit or by Jesus’ teaching. The important thing was that the teaching ultimately came from God himself.

you yourselves: In Greek, the word that the Berean Standard Bible translates as yourselves is an emphatic pronoun. If you have emphatic pronouns in your language, you should use one here.

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All Scripture quotations in this publication, unless otherwise indicated, are from The Holy Bible, Berean Standard Bible. BSB is produced in cooperation with Bible Hub, Discovery Bible, OpenBible.com, and the Berean Bible Translation Committee.