for our preaching of the good news came to you not entirely in words but with power and with the Holy Spirit and with absolute certainty (for you know the kind of men we were among you for your own sakes).

(1:7) For the message of the Lord has rung out from you, not only in Macedonia and Greece, but everywhere the report of your faith in God has been told, so that we need never mention it.

But, although we had just suffered and been insulted, as you remember, at Philippi, we again summoned courage by the help of God, in spite of the terrific strain, to tell you God's good news.

for since we have been so approved by God as to be entrusted with the good news, we are now telling it, not to please men but God, who proves and finds approved our hearts.

Because we were yearning for you so tenderly, we were willing, not only to share with you God's good news, but to lay down our very lives too for you, all because you were so dearly loved by us.

For another reason too, we, as far as we are concerned, are constantly giving thanks to God; that is, when you received the message you heard from us, you welcomed it not as the message of men but as the message of God, as it really is, which keeps on working in you who believe.

by trying to keep us from speaking to the heathen, so that they may be saved, so as always to fill to the brim the cup of their sins. But at last God's wrath has come upon them.

Now we, brothers, on our part, when we were separated from you for a little while -- in person but not in heart -- were extremely eager and intensely longing to see you.

Because we did want to come to see you; I mean, that I myself, Paul, wanted again and again to come, but Satan prevented it.

But now, since Timothy has just come back to me from you, and brought me good tidings of your faith and love, and told me how kindly you remembered me and that you are longing to see me as much as I am to see you,

For God did not call us to a life of immorality, but to one of personal purity.

So whoever rejects this teaching is rejecting not man but God who continues to put His Spirit in you.

But as to times and dates, brothers, you have no need of anyone's writing you,

When people say, "Such peace and security!" then suddenly destruction falls upon them, like birth pains upon a woman who is about to become a mother, but they shall not escape, no, not at all.

But you, brothers, are not in darkness, so that that day, like a thief, should take you by surprise;

So let us stop sleeping as others do, but let us stay awake and keep sober.

but let us who belong to the day keep sober, clothed with faith and love for a coat of mail and with the hope of salvation for a helmet.

For God appointed us not to reap His wrath but to gain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ,

Take care that none of you ever pays back evil for evil, but always keep looking for ways to show kindness to one another and everybody.

but continue to prove all things until you can approve them, and then hold on to what is good.