2 Thessalonians 3:8

and we did not eat anyone’s food without paying. ¹  Instead, in toil and drudgery we worked ²  night and day in order not to burden any of you.

nor did we eat anyone’s food without paying for it. On the contrary, we worked night and day, labouring and toiling so that we would not be a burden to any of you.

nor did we eat anyone’s bread without paying for it, but with labor and hardship we kept working night and day so that we would not be a burden to any of you;

We never accepted food from anyone without paying for it. We worked hard day and night so that we would not be a burden to any of you.

We didn't sit around on our hands expecting others to take care of us. In fact, we worked our fingers to the bone, up half the night moonlighting so you wouldn't be burdened with taking care of us.

And we did not take food from any man for nothing, but were working hard night and day not to be a trouble to any of you:

and we did not eat anyone’s bread without paying for it; but with toil and labor we worked night and day, so that we might not burden any of you.

nor did we eat anyone’s bread free of charge, but worked with labor and toil night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you,

and we did not eat anyone’s food without paying. ¹  Instead, in toil and drudgery we worked ²  night and day in order not to burden any of you.

¹ tn Grk “we did not eat bread freely from anyone.”

² tn Grk “but working,” as a continuation of the previous sentence. Because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, a new sentence was started with the word “Instead” in the translation.