(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.

We had just been through ill-treatment and insults at Philippi, as you remember, but, in the face of great opposition, we took courage by the help of our God, and told you God's good news.

Thus, yearning over you, we had found our delight in having imparted to you not only the glad tidings of God, but our own lives also, because ye had become beloved of us.

You can testify, and God too, with what pure, upright, and irreproachable motives I dealt with you who believed;

as ye know how we dealt with each one of you, as a father with his own children, exhorting you, and encouraging you , and testifying,

You are our pride and our delight!

For verily, when we were with you, we told you before that we should suffer tribulation; even as it came to pass, and ye know.

But now that Timothy has recently come back to us from you, and has brought us the happy tidings of your faith and love, and has told us how you still cherish a constant and affectionate recollection of us, and are longing to see us as we also long to see you--

For what [adequate] thanks can we offer to God for you in return for all the joy and delight we have before our God on your account?

not to gratify sensual passion like the Gentiles in their ignorance of God ??6 no one is to defraud or overreach his brother in this matter, for the Lord avenges all these sins, as we told you already in our solemn protest against them.

not overstepping the rights of and wronging his brother in the matter, because the Lord is the avenger of all these things, even as we also told you before, and have fully testified.

Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your hands, just as we told you,

For we declare to you what the Lord has told us to say: We who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who have died.

Therefore, comfort one another with what I have told you.

But you, brethren, are not in darkness, that daylight should surprise you like a thief;