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

² We give thanks to God always for you all, making mention of you in our prayers. ³ We continually remember your work of faith, labor of love, and patience, and your hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, before our God and Father. ⁴ We know your calling brothers, beloved of God. ⁵ We preached the good news to you, not in words only but with power from Holy Spirit and with conviction of its truth. You know how we lived when we were with you. It was for your own good. ⁶ You imitated the Lord and us, even though you suffered much affliction. Yet you received the word with the joy that comes from the Holy Spirit. ⁷ So you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and Achaia. ⁸ For not only did the message about God go out from you throughout Macedonia and Achaia, but the news about your faith in God has gone everywhere. There is nothing that we need to say. ⁹ All those people speak about how you received us when we visited you, and how you turned away from idols to God, to serve the true and living God, ¹⁰ and to wait for his Son to come from heaven, his Son Jesus, whom he raised from death and who rescues us from God's anger (indignation) that is to come.

³ Our friends, we should thank God at all times for you. It is right for us to do so, because your faith is growing so much and the love each of you has for the other abounds toward each other. ⁴ That is why we boast (rejoice) (have glory) about you in the congregations of God. We boast (rejoice) (have glory) about the way you continue to endure and believe through all the persecutions and sufferings you experience. ⁵ All of this proves that God's judgment is just, and as a result, you will become worthy of his Kingdom, for which you are suffering. ⁶ It is a righteous thing for God to repay with affliction (great suffering and distress) those who afflict you. ⁷ You who are afflicted rest with us at the revelation of the Lord Jesus from heaven with the angels of his power in flaming fire. ⁸ They will render vengeance to those who do not know God, and to those who do not obey the good news of our Lord Jesus. ⁹ They will suffer punishment, even eternal destruction from the Lord and from the glory of his might. ¹⁰ He will then come to be glorified in his holy ones, and to be marveled at by all those who believed, because our testimony to you was believed. ¹¹ We pray always for you, that our God may count you worthy of your calling, and fulfill every desire of goodness and every work of faith with power. ¹² May the name of our Lord Jesus be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.