Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy to the Thessalonian church in union with God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ; God bless you and give you peace.

We always thank God for you all when we mention you in our prayers,

for we can never forget before our God and Father your energetic faith, your loving service, and your unwavering expectation of our Lord Jesus Christ.

For we know, brothers whom God so loves, that he has chosen you,

for our preaching of the good news did not come to you as mere words but with power and the holy Spirit and full conviction??ou know the kind of life we lived among you for your good.

For the Lord's message has rung out from you not only over Macedonia and Greece, but the story of your belief in God has gone everywhere, so that we never need to mention it.

For when people speak of us, they tell what a welcome you gave us, and how you turned from idols to God, to serve a true and living God,

and to wait for the coming from heaven of his Son, whom he raised from the dead??esus, our deliverer from God's coming wrath.

We had just been through ill-treatment and insults at Philippi, as you remember, but, in the face of great opposition, we took courage by the help of our God, and told you God's good news.

God has thought us fit to be intrusted with the good news, and so we tell it, making no effort to please men, but to please God, who tests our hearts.

We never used flattery, as you know, or found pretexts for making money, as God is our witness.

That was the kind of affection we had for you, which made us ready to share with you not only God's good news but our own lives too, because you were so dear to us.

You remember, brothers, how we toiled and labored. We worked night and day, when we preached the good news to you, in order not to be a burden to any of you.

You will testify, and God will, how pure and upright and irreproachable our relations were with you who believed.

to make your lives worthy of God who invites you into his kingdom and his glory.

We for our part constantly thank God for another reason too??ecause when you received God's message from our lips, you welcomed it not as the message of men but as the message of God, as it really is, which does its work in the hearts of you believers.

For you, brothers, followed the example of God's churches in Judea that are in union with Christ Jesus, for you in your turn had to bear the same ill-treatment from your neighbors as they did from the Jews,

who killed the Lord Jesus and persecuted the prophets and us; who displease God, and in their hostility to all mankind

try to keep us from speaking to the heathen so that they may be saved, so as always to fill up the measure of their sins. But God's wrath has overtaken them at last!

and I sent my brother Timothy, a servant of God in preaching the good news of the Christ, to strengthen you in your faith

But now that Timothy has just come back to me from you, and brought me good news of your faith and love, and told me how kindly you think of me and that you long to see me just as much as I long to see you,

For how can I thank God enough for you, for all the happiness you make me feel in the presence of our God,

May our God and Father himself and our Lord Jesus open my way to you!

so that your hearts may be strong and faultlessly pure in the sight of our God and Father, when our Lord Jesus appears with all his saints!

Now, brothers, we ask and entreat you, in the name of the Lord Jesus, to live as you learned from us that you must live, to please God??s indeed you are doing, only do it more and more.

It is God's will that you should be consecrated, that you abstain from immorality,

not to gratify his passion, like the heathen who know nothing of God.

God has not called us to an unclean life, but to a pure one.

So whoever disregards this is not disregarding man, but God, who gives you his holy Spirit.

You do not need to have anyone write to you about brotherly love, for you have yourselves been taught by God to love one another,

For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, then by means of Jesus God will bring back with him those who have fallen asleep.

For the Lord himself, at the summons, when the archangel calls and God's trumpet sounds, will come down from heaven, and first those who died in union with Christ will rise;

For those who sleep sleep at night and those who get drunk do so at night,

but we who belong to the day must be composed, wearing faith and love for a coat of mail, and helmeted with the hope of salvation.

For God has not destined us for his wrath, but to gain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ,

Thank God whatever happens. For this is what God through Christ Jesus wants you to do.

but test them all, retaining what is good

May God himself, the giver of peace, consecrate you through and through. Spirit, soul, and body, may you be kept sound, and be found irreproachable when our Lord Jesus Christ comes.