I Thessalonians 5:25

Some oldest manuscripts read, "Pray ye also for (literally, 'concerning') us"; make us and our work the subject of your prayers, even as we have been just praying for you (Th1 5:23). Others omit the "also." The clergy need much the prayers of their flocks. Paul makes the same request in the Epistles to Romans, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Philemon, and in Second Corinthians; not so in the Epistles to Timothy and Titus, whose intercessions, as his spiritual sons, he was already sure of; nor in the Epistles, I Corinthians, and Galatians, as these Epistles abound in rebuke.

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).