The emotive tone becomes stronger in verse 15. The reading the prophets is certainly better than “their own prophets” (mentioned in New English Bible in a note). The punctuation of the UBS Greek New Testament: “killing Jesus and the prophets, and persecuting us” is generally accepted, though one or two commentators have argued for a punctuation which would give the meaning: “killing Jesus, and persecuting the prophets and us.” Hostile translates a word usually applied to such objects as the wind blowing against someone.

The participles translated killed and persecuted refer to action at a specific point in time. Displeasing, on the other hand, refers to a permanent or at least a long-lasting state.

Note that Paul here uses the word killed rather than “crucified” to show that the Jews were as much responsible for the death of Jesus as were the Romans, even though it was the latter who directly condemned and crucified him. Since the killing of the prophets preceded the killing of Jesus, it may be necessary to introduce a temporal distinction, for example, “and had earlier killed the prophets.” The persecution of Paul and his colleagues represents still a different period of time, and a temporal distinction may be required here also, for example, “and more recently they have been causing us to suffer,” or “… have been persecuting us.”

Since the historical order of the events mentioned in the first clause of this verse differs from the linguistic order, it may be necessary in some languages to rearrange the linguistic order, for example, “who long ago killed the prophets, and then caused the Lord Jesus to be killed, and recently have been persecuting us.” It may not be possible, in some languages, to use the one pronoun “they” to refer to those who killed the prophets, caused the Lord Jesus to be killed, and persecuted the apostle and his companions, because different groups of people performed these various acts. In may be necessary to mention three distinct groups, for example, “long ago some of them killed the prophets, and then others caused the Lord Jesus to be killed, and now some of them have been persecuting us.”

The exclamation How displeasing they are to God! may need to be made an emphatic statement such as “They displease God very much!”, “They cause God to be very angry!”, or “God is surely very angry with them!”

It is not easy to find a term which can readily translate hostile. The closest equivalent is normally an expression such as “enemy,” for example, “they are very much enemies of everyone,” or “they are very much against everyone.”

Quoted with permission from Ellingworth, Paul and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on Paul’s First Letter to the Thessalonians. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1976. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .