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

² We thank God always for all of you as we mention you constantly in our prayers, ³ because we recall in the presence of our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and endurance of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. ⁴ We know, brothers and sisters loved by God, that he has chosen you, ⁵ in that our gospel did not come to you merely in words, but in power and in the Holy Spirit and with deep conviction (surely you recall the character we displayed when we came among you to help you). ⁶ And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, when you received the message with joy that comes from the Holy Spirit, despite great affliction. ⁷ As a result you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia. ⁸ For from you the message of the Lord has echoed forth not just in Macedonia and Achaia, but in every place reports of your faith in God have spread, so that we do not need to say anything. ⁹ For people everywhere report how you welcomed us and how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God ¹⁰ and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus our deliverer from the coming wrath.

³ We ought to thank God always for you, brothers and sisters, and rightly so, because your faith flourishes more and more and the love of each one of you all for one another is ever greater. ⁴ As a result we ourselves boast about you in the churches of God for your perseverance and faith in all the persecutions and afflictions you are enduring. ⁵ This is evidence of God's righteous judgment, to make you worthy of the kingdom of God, for which in fact you are suffering. ⁶ For it is right for God to repay with affliction those who afflict you, ⁷ and to you who are being afflicted to give rest together with us when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels. ⁸ With flaming fire he will mete out punishment on those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. ⁹ They will undergo the penalty of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his strength, ¹⁰ when he comes to be glorified among his saints and admired on that day among all who have believed -- and you did in fact believe our testimony. ¹¹ And in this regard we pray for you always, that our God will make you worthy of his calling and fulfill by his power your every desire for goodness and every work of faith, ¹² that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.