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

² We always thank God for you all when we mention you constantly in our prayers, ³ as we recall your active faith and labour of love and patient hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, before our God and Father. ⁴ O brothers beloved by God, we know he has chosen you; ⁵ for our gospel came to you not with mere words but also with power and with the holy Spirit, with ample conviction on our part (you know what we were to you, for your own good), ⁶ and you started to copy us and the Lord, welcoming the word, though it brought you heavy trouble, with a joy inspired by the holy Spirit. ⁷ Thus you became a pattern to all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia; ⁸ for the word of the Lord has resounded from you not only through Macedonia and Achaia ??no, your faith in God has reached every place. We never need to speak about it. ⁹ People tell us of their own accord about the visit we paid to you, and how you turned to God from idols, to serve a living and a real God ¹⁰ and to wait for the coming of his Son from heaven ??the Son whom he raised from the dead, Jesus who rescues us from the Wrath to come.

³ We are bound always to thank God for you, brothers ??it is proper that we should, because your faith grows apace and your mutual love, one and all, is increasing. ⁴ So much so, that throughout the churches of God we are proud of you, proud of the stedfastness and faith you display through all the persecutions and the troubles in which you are involved. ⁵ They are proof positive of God's equity; you are suffering for the realm of God, and he means to make you worthy of it ??6 since God considers it but just to repay with trouble those who trouble you, ⁷ and repay you who are troubled (as well as us) with rest and relief, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven together with the angels of his power ⁸ in flaming fire, to inflict punishment on those who ignore God, even on those who refuse obedience to the gospel of our Lord Jesus, ⁹ men who will pay the penalty of being destroyed eternally from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might, ¹⁰ when he comes to be glorified in his saints and marvelled at in all believers on that day (for our testimony has found confirmation in your lives). ¹¹ In view of this we always pray for you, asking our God to make you worthy of his calling and by his power to fulfil every good resolve and every effort of faith, ¹² so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you (and you glorified in him), by the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.