1 sn I always thank my God. An offer of thanksgiving (εὐχαριστῶ, eucaristw) to God is a customary formula for Paul in many of his epistles (cf. Rom 1:8, 1 Cor 1:4, Eph 1:16, Col 1:3, 1 Thess 1:2, 2 Thess 1:3). The content of the thanksgiving typically points to the work of God in the salvation of the believers to whom he [Paul] writes.
2 tn Grk “making remembrance (or “mention”) of you in my prayers.”
3 tn Grk “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ with your spirit.” The elided verb, normally an optative, has been rendered as “be.”
4 tc Most witnesses, including several excellent ones (א C D1 Ψ 0278 Ï lat sy), conclude this letter with ἀμήν (amhn, “amen”). Such a conclusion is routinely added by scribes to NT books because a few of these books originally had such an ending (cf. Rom 16:27; Gal 6:18; Jude 25). A majority of Greek witnesses have the concluding ἀμήν in every NT book except Acts, James, and 3 John (and even in these books, ἀμήν is found in some witnesses). It is thus a predictable variant. Further, several good witnesses (Ì87 A D* 048vid 6 33 81 1739* 1881 sa) lack the ἀμήν, rendering the omission the preferred reading.
