From Paul and Silvanus and Timothy, to the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace and peace to you!

And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, when you received the message with joy that comes from the Holy Spirit, despite great affliction.

For from you the message of the Lord has echoed forth not just in Macedonia and Achaia, but in every place reports of your faith in God have spread, so that we do not need to say anything.

For people everywhere report how you welcomed us and how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God

and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus our deliverer from the coming wrath.

For the appeal we make does not come from error or impurity or with deceit,

nor to seek glory from people, either from you or from others,

And so we too constantly thank God that when you received God's message that you heard from us, you accepted it not as a human message, but as it truly is, God's message, which is at work among you who believe.

For you became imitators, brothers and sisters, of God's churches in Christ Jesus that are in Judea, because you too suffered the same things from your own countrymen as they in fact did from the Jews,

because they hinder us from speaking to the Gentiles so that they may be saved. Thus they constantly fill up their measure of sins, but wrath has come upon them completely.

But when we were separated from you, brothers and sisters, for a short time (in presence, not in affection) we became all the more fervent in our great desire to see you in person.

But now Timothy has come to us from you and given us the good news of your faith and love and that you always think of us with affection and long to see us just as we also long to see you!

For now we are alive again, if you stand firm in the Lord.

Finally then, brothers and sisters, we ask you and urge you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received instruction from us about how you must live and please God (as you are in fact living) that you do so more and more.

For this is God's will: that you become holy, that you keep away from sexual immorality,

For the Lord himself will come down from heaven with a shout of command, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.

Stay away from every form of evil.