Paul, Silas, and Timothy: To the Church of the Thessalonians which is in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. May grace and peace be granted to you.

We continually give thanks to God because of you all, while we make mention of you in our prayers.

For we never fail to remember your works of faith and labours of love and your persistent and unwavering hope in our Lord Jesus Christ in the presence of our God and Father;

knowing as we do, brethren, that you are beloved by God and that He has chosen you.

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 when others speak of us they report the reception we had from you, and how you turned from your idols to God, to be bondservants of the true and ever-living God,

and to await the return from Heaven of His Son, whom He raised from among the dead--even Jesus, our Deliverer from God's coming anger.

But, as you will remember, after we had already met with suffering and outrage at Philippi, we summoned up boldness, by the help of our God, to tell you God's Good News amid much opposition.

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.

For, as you are well aware, we have never used the language of flattery nor have we found pretexts for enriching ourselves--God is our witness;

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.

You yourselves are witnesses--and God is witness--how holy and upright and blameless our dealings with you believers were.

and imploring you to live lives worthy of fellowship with God who is inviting you to share His own Kingship and glory.

And for this further reason we render unceasing thanks to God, that when you received God's Message from our lips, it was as no mere message from men that you embraced it, but as--what it really is--God's Message, which also does its work in the hearts of you who believe.

For you, brethren, followed the example of the Churches of God in Christ Jesus which are in Judaea; seeing that you endured the same ill-treatment at the hands of your countrymen, as they did at the hands of the Jews.

Those Jewish persecutors killed both the Lord Jesus and the Prophets, and drove us out of their midst. They are displeasing to God, and are the enemies of all mankind;

for they still try to prevent our preaching to the Gentiles so that they may find salvation. They thus continually fill up the measure of their own sins, and God's anger in its severest form has overtaken them.

and sent Timothy our brother and God's minister in the service of Christ's Good News, that he might help you spiritually and encourage you in your faith;

For what thanksgiving on your behalf can we possibly offer to God in return for all the joy which fills our souls before our God for you,

But may our God and Father Himself--and our Lord Jesus--guide us on our way to you;

Thus He will build up your characters, so that you will be faultlessly holy in the presence of our God and Father at the Coming of our Lord Jesus with all His holy ones.

Moreover, brethren, as you learnt from our lips the lives which you ought to live, and do live, so as to please God, we beg and exhort you in the name of the Lord Jesus to live them more and more truly.

For this is God's will--your purity of life, that you abstain from fornication;

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.

But on the subject of love for the brotherhood it is unnecessary for me to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another;

For if we believe that Jesus has died and risen again, we also believe that, through Jesus, God will bring with Him those who shall have passed away.

For the Lord Himself will come down from Heaven with a loud word of command, and with an archangel's voice and the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.

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

See to it that no one ever repays another with evil for evil; but always seek opportunities of doing good both to one another and to all the world.

In every circumstance of life be thankful; for this is God's will in Christ Jesus respecting you.

but test all such, and retain hold of the good.

And may God Himself who gives peace, make you entirely holy; and may your spirits, souls and bodies be preserved complete and be found blameless at the Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.