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

² We always mention you in our prayers and thank God for you all; ³ Recalling continually before our God and Father the efforts that have resulted from your faith, the toil prompted by your love, and the patient endurance sustained by your hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. ⁴ Brothers, whom God loves, we know that he has chosen you, ⁵ Because the Good News that we brought came home to you, not merely as so many words, but with a power and a fulness of conviction due to the Holy Spirit. For you know the life that we lived among you for your good. ⁶ And you yourselves began to follow, not only our example, but the Master's also; and, in spite of much suffering, you welcomed the Message with a joy inspired by the Holy Spirit, ⁷ And so became a pattern to all who believed in Christ throughout Macedonia and Greece. ⁸ For it was from you that the Lord's Message resounded throughout Macedonia and Greece; and, more than that, your faith in God has become known far and wide; so that there is no need for us to say another word. ⁹ Indeed, in speaking about us, the people themselves tell of the reception you gave us, and how, turning to God from your idols, you became servants of the true and living God, ¹⁰ And are now awaiting the return from Heaven of his Son whom he raised from the dead--Jesus, our deliverer from the Coming Wrath.

³ Brothers, it is our duty always to thank God about you, as is but right, considering the wonderful growth of your faith, and because, without exception, your love for one another is continually increasing. ⁴ So much is this the case that we ourselves speak with pride, before the Churches of God, of the patience and faith which you have shown, in spite of all the persecutions and troubles that you are enduring. ⁵ These persecutions will vindicate the justice of God's judgment, and will result in your being reckoned worthy of God's Kingdom, for the sake of which you are now afflicted; ⁶ Since God deems it just to inflict suffering upon those who are now inflicting suffering upon you, ⁷ And to give relief to you who are suffering, as well as to us, at the Appearing of the Lord Jesus from Heaven with his mighty angels, 'in flaming fire.' ⁸ Then he will 'inflict punishment upon those who refuse to know God, and upon those who turn a deaf ear' to the Good News of Jesus, our Lord. ⁹ These men will pay the penalty of unutterable Ruin--banished 'from the presence of the Lord and from the glorious manifestation of his might, ¹⁰ When he comes to be honour ed in his People,' and to be revered in all who have learned to believe in him (for you also believed our testimony)--as he will be on 'That Day.' ¹¹ With this in view, our constant prayer for you is that our God may count you worthy of the Call that you have received, and by his power make perfect your delight in all goodness and the efforts that have resulted from your faith. ¹² Then, in the loving-kindness of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ, will the name of Jesus, our Lord, be honour ed in you, and you in him.