1 Thessalonians 1:2-10 - Thanksgiving For The Thessalonian Believers

² I am continually thanking God for all, always making mention of you in my prayers, ³ as I call to mind your work of faith, and labor of love, and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, in the presence of our God and Father. ⁴ For I know, O brothers, beloved of God, that he has chosen you; ⁵ for my gospel did not come to you in word only, but in power also, and in the Holy Spirit, and with deep conviction. For you know also the manner in which I behaved myself among you for your sakes. ⁶ Moreover, you began to follow the pattern I set you, and the Lord's also, receiving the word with joy in the Holy Spirit, although amid severe persecution. ⁷ Thus you became a pattern to all the believers in Macedonia and Achaia. ⁸ For the word of the Lord has been sounded forth from you, and its sound has been heard not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place where the tidings of your faith toward God have been spread abroad, so that I have no need to speak of it. ⁹ For others, of their own accord, tell about the welcome I had from you, and how you turned to God from your idols, to be slaved of a true and living God, ¹⁰ and to await for the coming of his Son from the heavens, the Son whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, our Deliverer from the wrath to come.

³ I ought always to thank God for you, brothers, as is fitting because of the abundant growth of your faith and of the overflowing love with which every one of you is filled toward one another. ⁴ So that I myself am boasting about you among the churches of God, boasting of the stedfastness and faith which you are displaying in all the troubles and afflictions which you are enduring. ⁵ They are an evidence of the righteous judgment of God, who will count you worthy of his kingdom, in behalf of which you are even now suffering. ⁶ For truly God's justice must render back trouble to those who are troubling you, ⁷ and give to you, who are now troubled, rest, along with me at the unveiling "apocalypse" of the Lord Jesus from heaven, with his mighty angels, ⁸ in flaming fire. Then shall he take vengeance on those who know not God, even on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. ⁹ They shall suffer punishment, even an eternal destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the brightness of his glorious majesty, ¹⁰ when he comes to be glorified in his saints, and to be wondered at in all believers, on that Day; (for you also believed our testimony). ¹¹ To this end I am making my constant prayer for you, beseeching God to make you worthy of your calling, and to fulfil mightily every desire of goodness and effort of faith; ¹² so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in him, according to the grace of our God and of our Lord Jesus Christ.