PAUL and Sylvanus and Timothy to the church of the Thessalonians, which is in God the Father and in the Lord Jesus Christ: grace be to 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,

remembering unceasingly your work, which is the result of faith, your labor, the cause of which is love, and your patience, which springs from your hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, in the sight of our God and Father:

be cause we know, brethren beloved of God, your election.

For from you, the word of the Lord sounded out, not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also your faith in God has gone abroad in every place, so that we have no need to speak any thing.

For they themselves declare concerning us what kind of entrance we had to you, and how you turned to God from idols, to serve the living and true God,

But having suffered before, and having been outraged, as you know, in Philippi, we were bold in our God to speak to you the gospel of God in the midst of great peril.

but as God had judged us worthy to be intrusted with the gospel, so we speak, not as pleasing men, but God, who tries our hearts.

For neither nattering words did we at any time use, as you know, nor a pretext for covetousness; God is witness:

so, having a strong affection for you, we were well pleased to impart to you not only the gospel of God, but our own lives also, because you had become dear to us.

For you remember, brethren, our labor and toil; for, laboring night and day, that we might not be burdensome to any one of you, we preached to you the gospel of God.

You are witnesses, and God also, in how holy and just and blameless a manner we conducted our selves among you that believe,

that you should walk in a manner worthy of God, who has called you to his own kingdom and glory.

For this reason, also, we thank God without ceasing; be cause, when you received the word of God, as preached by us, you embraced it, not as the word of men, but, as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually works in you that believe.

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

who both killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and have persecuted us, and do not please God, and are opposed to all men,

Wherefore, being no longer able to contain ourselves, we thought it good to be left at Athens alone;

and we sent Timothy our brother and minister of God in the gospel of the Christ, in order that he might strengthen and comfort you with respect to your faith,

But now, since Timothy has come to us from you, and has told us the good news of your faith and love, and that you have a good remembrance of us at all times, greatly desiring to see us, as indeed we desire to see you,

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

Now, may God himself, even our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ, direct our way to you.

in order that he may establish your hearts blameless in holiness, in the presence of our God and Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints.

Finally, then, brethren, we beseech and exhort you, by our Lord Jesus, that as you learned from us how you ought to walk and please God, you would abound more and more.

For this is the will of God, your sanctification, that you keep yourselves from lewdness;

not in passionate desire, as the Gentiles do, who know not God;

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

Therefore, he that despises, despises not man, but God, who has given us his Holy Spirit.

But with respect to brotherly love, you have no need that I write to you: for you yourselves are taught of God to love one another;

For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, so also should we believe that God will, through Jesus, bring with him those who sleep.

for the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God; and the dead in Christ shall arise first;

for God has not appointed us to wrath, but to the obtaining of salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ,

See that no one render evil for evil to any, but always pursue that which is good toward one another and toward all.

in every thing give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.

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 blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.