2 Timothy 4:7
I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith:
Study Note
Study Note
Paul's triple athletic and military metaphor — 'I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith' — is delivered from prison, framing the apostolic life as a completed contest awaiting its prize. The perfect tense of all three verbs in Greek signals completed action with abiding result, an assessment made from the finish line rather than mid-course. 'Kept the faith' (ten pistin tetireka) carries the sense of guarding a trust or deposit, picking up the 'deposit' language of 1:12 and 1:14, where Paul speaks of entrusting the gospel to God's keeping and to Timothy's. The verse stands as one of the most moving personal testimonies in the New Testament and has shaped Christian conceptions of faithfulness as lifelong perseverance rather than momentary decision.
Other Translations
I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith:
the good strife I have striven, the course I have finished, the faith I have kept,
I have made a good fight, I have come to the end of my journey, I have kept the faith:
Cross References
Buy the truth, and sell it not; also wisdom, and instruction, and understanding.
But he said, Yea rather, blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it.
But that on the good ground are they, which in an honest and good heart, having heard the word, keep …
But none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish …
And as John fulfilled his course, he said, Whom think ye that I am? I am not he. But, behold, …
I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, …
O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely …
Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art also called, and hast professed a …
This charge I commit unto thee, son Timothy, according to the prophecies which went before on thee, that thou by …