Paul and Silas and Timothy. To the church of the Thessalonians which is in God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Grace be to you, and peace.

I am continually thanking God for all, always making mention of you in my prayers,

as I call to mind your work of faith, and labor of love, and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, in the presence of our God and Father.

For I know, O brothers, beloved of God, that he has chosen you;

For the word of the Lord has been sounded forth from you, and its sound has been heard not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place where the tidings of your faith toward God have been spread abroad, so that I have no need to speak of it.

For others, of their own accord, tell about the welcome I had from you, and how you turned to God from your idols, to be slaved of a true and living God,

for you remember that although I had already borne ill-treatment and insult at Philippi, I took courage in my God to tell you the gospel of God, in the face of much opposition.

But as my fitness to be entrusted with the gospel has been tested and approved by God, I so speak, not to please men, but to please God, who is testing my motives.

For as you well know, I never resorted to flattery, nor to any pretext for enriching myself. God is my witness!

So in my fond affection it was my joy to give you, not only the gospel of God, but my very life also, because you had become dear to me.

You recall, brothers, my labor and toil; how, while working at my trade day and night, so as not to become a burden to any of you, I proclaimed to you the gospel of God.

You are witnesses??nd so is God??ow pure and just and blameless was my behavior among you believers.

exhorting and imploring and adjuring each one among you to lead a life worthy of the God who called you into his own kingdom and glory.

For this reason also I am giving continual thanks to God, because when you heard from me the spoken word of God, you received it not as the word of men, but as the word of God (which in truth it is), who himself is effectually at work in you believe.

For you, brothers, began to follow the example of the churches of God in Judea, which are in Christ Jesus; and you in your turn suffered at the hands of your fellow citizens persecutions like to those which they endured from the Jews??15 The men who killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and drove us out??hey are displeasing to God, and are the enemies of all mankind.

They forbid me to speak to the Gentiles with a view to their salvation. They continue always to fill up the measure of their sins; but the wrath of God is come upon them to the full!

I sent Timothy, my brother and God's fellow worker in the gospel of Christ, to strengthen you and to hearten you in your faith.

But now that Timothy has returned from you to me, and has brought good news of your faith and love, and that you are still holding me in affectionate remembrance, always longing to see me as I also am longing to see you.

For what thanksgiving can I render again to God in your behalf, in return for all the joy which you cause me in the presence of my God?

Now may our God and Father himself, and our Lord Jesus Christ, direct my path to you.

And so may he establish your hearts unblameable in holiness before our God and Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus, with all his saints.

Finally then, my brothers, I continue to beseech and exhort you in the Lord Jesus, that, as you learned of me how to walk so as to please God??nd you are actually doing so??hat you abound in it yet more and more.

For this is God's will, even your sanctification; that you should abstain from sexual vice.

Not in the passion of lust, like the Gentiles who know not God.

For God has not called us for uncleanness, but in holiness.

So that he who rejects this is not rejecting man, but the God who gave you his Holy Spirit.

It is not needed that I should write to you about brotherly love; for you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another.

For if we really believe that Jesus died and rose again, so even so will God through Jesus bring with him those also who have fallen asleep.

For the Lord himself with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God will descend from heaven. Then the dead in Christ will rise first.

For God did not appoint us to wrath, but to win salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Give thanks in every circumstance, for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus.

But try all, holding fast to the good.

May the God of peace consecrate you wholly; and may your spirit and soul and body be kept altogether faultless until the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.