What Does 1 Thessalonians 5:25 Mean in the King James?
Brethren, pray for us.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The verse asks a family to carry even its messengers in prayer: care moves both ways.
THE MEANING
You are part of a living exchange of care: the people who serve others also need support. Their need can become a shared appeal to God, held within kinship.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that those who serve or guide others should be self-sufficient; they, too, ask to be carried.
THE ROOT
ἀδελφοί
adelphoi
GROWS FROM
ἀδελφ- (adelph-), traditionally linked with δελφύς (delphys, “womb”)
The word is traditionally understood as joining sameness with womb: siblings, those from the same womb.
“Brethren” in this verse is adelphoi. The request begins by naming a bond of kinship. “Pray for us” is spoken within that bond, making support part of how this family relates, not a one-way duty.
ALSO GROWS
adelphē: sister
ἀδελφή
The feminine form makes the sibling bond explicit across gender.
adelphotēs: siblinghood; brotherhood
ἀδελφότης
The same word family can name a whole community as kin, widening the request beyond a private exchange.
προσεύχομαι
proseuchomai
GROWS FROM
εὐχ-
euch-
Wish, vow, or prayer; in προσεύχομαι, the appeal is directed toward God.
“Pray” in this verse is proseuchomai. The Greek word connects prayer with a wish or vow brought toward God. Here the request turns concern for another into a directed appeal, so prayer becomes a way of sharing in that person’s burden.
ALSO GROWS
euchē: prayer; vow
εὐχή
This related noun holds prayer and vowed desire in the same word family.
proseuchē: prayer
προσευχή
The noun form names the prayer that the verse asks its readers to offer for others.
THE PATTERN
Prayer makes care communal by turning another’s need into a shared appeal to God.
Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: they shall prosper that love thee.Peter therefore was kept in prison: but prayer was made without ceasing of the church unto God for him.Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.THE THREAD
Now I beseech you, brethren, for the Lord Jesus Christ’s sake, and for the love of the Spirit, that ye strive together with me in your prayers to God for me;The same Greek prayer word appears here as “prayers,” alongside the phrase “strive together with me.” That shared wording opens “pray for us” as participation in another’s labor, not a distant or ornamental request.
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