1:4

In 1:3–4 Paul strongly emphasized that he was happy and thankful for the Philippians. In Greek emphasis could be shown by repetition, and in these verses Paul repeated the idea of “all” (every time, all my prayers, all of you, always) and the idea of “prayer.” Try to find a natural way to show this emphasis in your language.

In every prayer for all of you, I always pray with joy: Paul meant that whenever he prayed for the Philippians, he prayed for all of them with joy. The emphasis of the verse is on Paul’s joy. Make sure your translation does not imply that sometimes Paul only prayed for some of the Philippians and then he was not joyful. It may be necessary to make the meaning clear by saying something like:

Every time I pray for you, I ask God to help all of you and I always rejoice.

In every prayer: This is literally “in every prayer of mine.” It could be translated as “every time I pray.” It may indicate that Paul prayed for the Philippians at each of his set times of prayer.

prayer…pray: In Greek these are both the noun meaning “supplication.” It may be necessary to translate both of them with a verb meaning “to pray, beg, ask God for help.” Paul was asking God to help the Philippians. The word you use for prayer should include the concept of asking God for something.

Although the word for prayer occurs twice in the original Greek, in your language it may be unnatural to repeat the word. If that is the case, perhaps the same meaning can be obtained by using one verb or two synonyms (see Display).

with joy: This means “with happiness,” “joyfully” or “because I am happy.”

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