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1 Thessalonians 5.19
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Passage

1 Thessalonians 5.19

Book: 1 Thessalonians · ASV / WEB / KJV / YLT

Immediate context (±2 verses)

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ASV

17. pray without ceasing; 18. in everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus to you-ward.

19. Quench not the Spirit;

  1. despise not prophesyings; 21. prove all things; hold fast that which is good; (1 Thessalonians 5:17-21, ASV)
WEB

17. Pray without ceasing. 18. In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus toward you.

19. Don’t quench the Spirit.

  1. Don’t despise prophesies. 21. Test all things, and hold firmly that which is good. (1 Thessalonians 5:17-21, WEB)
KJV

17. Pray without ceasing. 18. In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.

19. Quench not the Spirit.

  1. Despise not prophesyings. 21. Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. (1 Thessalonians 5:17-21, KJV)
YLT

17. continually pray ye; 18. in every thing give thanks, for this [is] the will of God in Christ Jesus in regard to you.

19. The Spirit quench not;

  1. prophesyings despise not; 21. all things prove; that which is good hold fast; (1 Thessalonians 5:17-21, YLT)

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Setting

  • Speaker: Paul, writing with Silvanus (Silas) and Timothy, who are named as co-senders in the opening (1 Thess 1:1).
  • Audience: The church in Thessalonica, capital of the Roman province of Macedonia; a largely Gentile congregation of recent converts (1 Thess 1:9) founded on the second missionary journey (Acts 17:1-9).
  • Location: Written from Corinth, shortly after Timothy returned with news of the young church (1 Thess 3:6).
  • Time period: c. AD 50-51. The Gallio inscription from Delphi fixes Paul in Corinth around AD 51-52 (Acts 18:12), which makes this letter either the earliest or one of the two earliest surviving Pauline writings, roughly twenty years after the crucifixion.

Theological reading

"Quench not the Spirit."

A fire image. "Quench" is Strong's G4570 in the KJV, the verb used of putting out fire, as in "able to quench all the fiery darts of the evil one" (Ephesians 6:16). The Spirit (pneuma) is pictured as a flame that can be smothered.

The context is prophecy. The command opens a short unit that continues, "despise not prophesyings; prove all things; hold fast that which is good; abstain from every form of evil" (5:20-22). Most interpreters read the quenching in light of the next line: suppressing the Spirit's gifts of speech in the gathered church, perhaps in reaction to abuse or to the disorderly members of 5:14.

Neither suppression nor credulity. Paul does not answer misuse by forbidding prophecy. The remedy he gives is testing (5:21), which assumes prophetic speech continues and must be weighed, as in "let the prophets speak by two or three, and let the others discern" (1 Corinthians 14:29).

Key words

Theologically-loaded Greek or Hebrew words in this verse may have entries in the lexicon. Curated to roughly 100 contested terms across the corpus, not every word.

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Why these four translations

ris3n chose ASV, WEB, KJV, and YLT for two reasons together. They are the most literal English translations available (formal-equivalence: word-for-word renderings that preserve the Hebrew and Greek grammar rather than smoothing it into modern dynamic-equivalence idiom). And they are in the public domain in the United States, which means fair-use quotation at any length requires no publisher license. Modern licensed translations (NASB95, ESV, NIV) restrict volume of quotation under their copyright terms, so they are not used at stub-level coverage here. NASB95 appears only on hand-curated rich passage hubs under Lockman Foundation's fair-use allowance.

The four:

  • ASV (American Standard Version, 1901). The basis of the modern critical-text English tradition.
  • WEB (World English Bible, contemporary). Public-domain revision in the ASV line, in current English.
  • KJV (King James Version, 1611). Reformation-era, Textus Receptus base.
  • YLT (Young's Literal Translation, Robert Young, 1862). Hyper-literal preservation of Hebrew and Greek grammar; useful for word-study work even where English reads stiff.

See Bibles for the full per-translation history, translators, textual basis, strengths, and weaknesses.