The letter ends with a short benediction consisting of two short sentences. The first sentence contains a singular second person pronoun and is obviously addressed to Timothy. However, the pronoun in the second sentence is plural and is therefore addressed to the whole Christian community in Ephesus. The plural pronoun shows that, although the letter is addressed to Timothy, it is intended for the whole church.

A benediction is usually intended as a prayer, and in some languages it is much more natural to be introduced as such; for example, “I pray that the Lord be with your spirit” (compare Contemporary English Version “I pray that the Lord will bless your life and will be kind to you”).

Lord here refers to either God or more probably to Jesus Christ (or Christ Jesus). Spirit here refers to a person’s inner being or self, that is, the nonmaterial element in a person that enables a person to respond to God. There are often problems in looking for an appropriate term in the receptor language. One should avoid using a term that refers to a ghost. It is also possible to translate spirit here as denoting the whole person, in which case with your spirit can be restructured as “with you.”

For grace see 1 Tim 1.2. The plural pronoun you may be rendered as “all of you” (compare Good News Translation “you all”). The implicit source of grace may be God, which allows for the following restructuring: “I pray that God may be good to all of you.”

Quoted with permission from Arichea, Daniel C. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on Paul’s Second Letter to Timothy. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1995. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .