The Good News that we brought you did not come to you in words only, but also with power and with the Holy Spirit and with much certainty, for you know the sort of men we became among you, as examples for your sakes.

For it was not only from you that the Master's Message sounded forth throughout Macedonia and Greece; but everywhere your faith in God has become known, so that it is unnecessary for us to say anything about it.

For you yourselves, brethren, know that our visit to you did not fail of its purpose.

For our preaching was not grounded on a delusion, nor prompted by mingled motives, nor was there fraud in it.

But as God tested and approved us before entrusting us with His Good News, so in what we say we are seeking not to please men but to please God, who tests and approves our motives.

Seeing that we were thus drawn affectionately towards you, it would have been a joy to us to have imparted to you not only God's Good News, but to have given our very lives also, because you had become very dear to us.

For you remember, brethren, our labour and toil: how, working night and day so as not to become a burden to any one of you, we came and proclaimed among you God's Good News.

But we, brethren, having been for a short time separated from you in bodily presence, though not in heart, endeavoured all the more earnestly, with intense longing, to see you face to face.

For what is our hope or joy, or the crown of which we boast? Is it not you yourselves in the presence of our Lord Jesus at His Coming?

while night and day, with intense earnestness, we pray that we may see your faces, and may bring to perfection whatever may be still lacking in your faith?

that you be not overmastered by lustful cravings, like the Gentiles who have no knowledge of God;

God has not called us to an unclean life, but to one of purity.

Therefore a defiant spirit in such a case provokes not man but God, who puts His Holy Spirit into your hearts.

so as to live worthy lives in relation to outsiders, and not be a burden to any one.

Now, concerning those who from time to time pass away, we would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, lest you should mourn as others do who have no hope.

For this we declare to you on the Lord's own authority--that we who are alive and continue on earth until the Coming of the Lord, shall certainly not forestall those who shall have previously passed away.

For you yourselves know perfectly well that the day of the Lord comes like a thief in the night.

But you, brethren, are not in darkness, that daylight should surprise you like a thief;

for all of you are sons of Light and sons of the day. We belong neither to the night nor to darkness.

So then let us not sleep, like the rest of the world, but let us keep awake and be sober.

For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who drink freely, drink at night.

For God has not pre-destined us to meet His anger, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ;

Do not quench the Spirit.

Do not think meanly of utterances of prophecy;