I Thessalonians 5:17
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Pray without ceasing.
Commentaries
Excerpts gathered from published commentaries to ground the reading.
The Greek is, "Pray without intermission"; without allowing prayerless gaps to intervene between the times of prayer.
Open source ↗The apostle, having spoken in the end of the foregoing chapter concerning the resurrection, and the second coming of Christ, proceeds to speak concerning the uselessness of enquiring after the particular time of Christ's coming, which would be sudden and terrible to the wicked, but comfortable to the saints (Th1 5:1-5). He then exhorts them to the duties of watchfulness, sobriety, and the exercise of faith, love, and hope, as being suitable to their state (Th1 5:6-10). In the next words he exhorts them to several duties they owed to others, or to one another (Th1 5:11-15), afterwards to several other Christian duties of great importance (Th1 5:16-22), and then concludes this epistle (Th1 5:23-28).
Open source ↗5:17 Never stop praying means not giving up (1:2; Luke 18:1; Rom 12:12; Eph 6:18); it does not mean praying at every moment.
Open source ↗Original language
The Hebrew and Greek words behind this passage, with Strong's numbers — from openscriptures (CC BY-SA).
Cross-references
Other passages the community most often connects to this one. Tap to read.
Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, persistent in prayer.
Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful,
Pray in the Spirit at all times, with every kind of prayer and petition. To this end, stay alert with all perseverance in your prayers for all the saints.
Then Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray at all times and not lose heart:
So keep watch at all times, and pray that you may have the strength to escape all that is about to happen and to stand before the Son of Man.”
The end of all things is near. Therefore be clear-minded and sober, so that you can pray.