(1:7) For the message of the Lord has rung out from you, not only in Macedonia and Greece, but everywhere the report of your faith in God has been told, so that we need never mention it.

For the people themselves tell us what a welcome you gave us, and how you turned from idols to the true God, to serve the God who lives on and is real,

and to wait for the coming from heaven of His Son, whom He raised from the dead, Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come.

For our appeal did not originate from a delusion or an impure motive; it was not made in fraud;

We never sought praise from men, either from you or from anyone else; although as apostles we could have stood on our official dignity.

For another reason too, we, as far as we are concerned, are constantly giving thanks to God; that is, when you received the message you heard from us, you welcomed it not as the message of men but as the message of God, as it really is, which keeps on working in you who believe.

by trying to keep us from speaking to the heathen, so that they may be saved, so as always to fill to the brim the cup of their sins. But at last God's wrath has come upon them.

Now we, brothers, on our part, when we were separated from you for a little while -- in person but not in heart -- were extremely eager and intensely longing to see you.

But now, since Timothy has just come back to me from you, and brought me good tidings of your faith and love, and told me how kindly you remembered me and that you are longing to see me as much as I am to see you,

Now, brothers, we ask and beg you, in the face of our union with the Lord Jesus, as you once received from us how you ought to live so as to please God -- as indeed you are living -- to continue to live this life better and better.

For it is God's will that you should keep pure in person, that you should practice abstinence from sexual immorality,

Also we do not want you to have any misunderstanding, brothers, about those who are falling asleep, so as to keep you from grieving over them as others do who have no hope.

For the Lord Himself, at the summons sounded by the archangel's call and by God's trumpet, will come down from heaven, and first of all the dead in union with Christ will rise,

Continue to abstain from every sort of evil.