Who both killed the Lord Jesus, and their own prophets, and have persecuted us; and they please not God, and are contrary to all men:
Parallel translations
- WEB who killed both the Lord Jesus and their own prophets, and drove us out, and didn’t please God, and are contrary to all men;
- BSB who killed both the Lord Jesus and their own prophets, and drove us out as well. They are displeasing to God and hostile to all men,
- NKJV who killed both the Lord Jesus and their own prophets, and have persecuted us; and they do not please God and are contrary to all men,
- NASB who both killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and drove us out. They are not pleasing to God, but hostile to all people,
- NLT For some of the Jews killed the prophets, and some even killed the Lord Jesus. Now they have persecuted us, too. They fail to please God and work against all humanity
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Paul recounts how some opposed the Lord Jesus, the prophets, and the apostles, displeasing God. He describes a pattern of resistance to God's messengers.
Overview
Paul refers to those among his own people who rejected Jesus and the prophets before him and drove out the apostles. This continues a long biblical pattern of persecuting God's spokesmen, climaxing in the rejection of Christ. The verse must be read not as a blanket condemnation of a people—Paul himself was a Jew who longed for their salvation (Romans 9-11)—but as a sober description of opposition to the gospel; Christians should guard against any misuse of such texts to justify hostility.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 18
- Matt 5:12Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.
- Luke 11:48–53Truly ye bear witness that ye allow the deeds of your fathers: for they indeed killed them, and ye build their sepulchres.
- Acts 7:52Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? and they have slain them which shewed before of the coming of the Just One; of whom ye have been now the betrayers and murderers:
- Acts 2:23Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain:
- Luke 13:33–34Nevertheless I must walk to day, and to morrow, and the day following: for it cannot be that a prophet perish out of Jerusalem.
- Matt 23:31–35Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves, that ye are the children of them which killed the prophets.
- Matt 27:25Then answered all the people, and said, His blood be on us, and on our children.
- Acts 3:15And killed the Prince of life, whom God hath raised from the dead; whereof we are witnesses.
- Luke 24:20And how the chief priests and our rulers delivered him to be condemned to death, and have crucified him.
- Matt 23:37O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!
- Acts 5:30The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew and hanged on a tree.
- Acts 12:3And because he saw it pleased the Jews, he proceeded further to take Peter also. (Then were the days of unleavened bread.)
- Esth 3:8And Haman said unto king Ahasuerus, There is a certain people scattered abroad and dispersed among the people in all the provinces of thy kingdom; and their laws are diverse from all people; neither keep they the king’s laws: therefore it is not for the king’s profit to suffer them.
- 1 Cor 10:5But with many of them God was not well pleased: for they were overthrown in the wilderness.
- Acts 22:18–21And saw him saying unto me, Make haste, and get thee quickly out of Jerusalem: for they will not receive thy testimony concerning me.
- Amos 7:12Also Amaziah said unto Amos, O thou seer, go, flee thee away into the land of Judah, and there eat bread, and prophesy there:
- Matt 21:35–39And the husbandmen took his servants, and beat one, and killed another, and stoned another.
- Acts 4:10Be it known unto you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God raised from the dead, even by him doth this man stand here before you whole.
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Christ at the center
The believer waits for God's Son from heaven, Jesus who delivers from the wrath to come and who will return to gather his people to himself.
How 1 Thessalonians 2:15 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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