PAUL, and Silvanus, and Timothy, to the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father, and in the Lord Jesus Christ: grace unto you, and peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ.

We give thanks to God always for you all, making mention of you in our prayers;

without ceasing calling to mind your work of faith, and labour of love, and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, before our God and Father;

knowing, brethren, beloved of God, your election.

For from you sounded forth the word of the Lord, not only into Macedonia and Achaia, but into every region also your fidelity towards God is gone out, so that we have no need to say any thing.

For they publish concerning you what manner of entrance we had unto you, and how ye turned unto God from idols, to serve the living and true God,

But though we had suffered before, and were infamously treated, as ye know, at Philippi, we were bold in our God to preach unto you the gospel of God amidst a great conflict.

but as we have been approved of God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak, not as pleasing men, but God, who trieth our hearts.

For neither at any time used we insinuating language, as ye know, nor a pretext for covetousness; God is witness:

So, tenderly affected towards you, we could with pleasure have imparted to you not the gospel of God only, but our own lives also, because ye were beloved by us.

For ye remember, brethren, our labour and toil: for night and day working hard, that we might be no burden to any of you, we preached unto you the gospel of God.

Ye are witnesses, and God also, how holily, and justly, and faultlessly we conducted ourselves among you that believe:

that ye should walk worthy of God, as calling you into his kingdom and glory.

For this cause do we also give thanks to God unceasingly, because when ye received the word reported by us from God, ye received it not as the word of man, but, as it is in truth, the word of God, which worketh also effectually in you that believe.

For ye, brethren, became imitators of the churches of God which are in Judea, in Christ Jesus: for ye suffered the same things also yourselves from your own countrymen, as they too have of the Jews;

who both murdered the Lord Jesus and their own prophets, and have persecuted us, and please not God, and are in opposition to all mankind;

WHEREFORE when we could no longer forbear, we thought it good to be left at Athens alone:

and sent Timothy our brother, and a minister of God, and our fellow-labourer in the gospel of Christ, that he might stablish you, and comfort you concerning your faith:

For what sufficient thanks can we render to God for you, for all the joy with which we rejoice on your account before our God,

Now God himself, and our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ direct our way unto you.

to the end that your hearts may be established blameless in holiness before God and our Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints.

FINALLY, brethren, we beseech you therefore, and conjure you by the Lord Jesus, that as ye have received of us how ye ought to walk, and please God, so ye would abound more and more.

For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that you should abstain from whoredom;

not in the vile passion of lewdness, as the Gentiles which know not God;

For God hath not called us unto impurity, but unto holiness.

Therefore he that despiseth, despiseth not man, but God, who hath also given unto us his Holy Spirit.

For if we believe that Jesus died, and rose again, so also those that have fallen asleep for Jesus shall God bring with him.

For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first:

For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ,

See that no man return evil for evil to any man; but always pursue that which is good, both towards one another, and towards all men.

In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus to you-wards.

Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.

Now the God of peace himself sanctify you wholly; and may your whole spirit, and soul, and body be preserved faultless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.