We always thank God for you all when we mention you constantly in our prayers,

for our gospel came to you not with mere words but also with power and with the holy Spirit, with ample conviction on our part (you know what we were to you, for your own good),

for the word of the Lord has resounded from you not only through Macedonia and Achaia ??no, your faith in God has reached every place. We never need to speak about it.

and to wait for the coming of his Son from heaven ??the Son whom he raised from the dead, Jesus who rescues us from the Wrath to come.

For the appeal we make does not spring from any delusion or from impure motives ??it does not work by cunning;

We never resorted to flattery (you know that), nor to any pretext for self-seeking (God is witness to that);

fain, in our yearning affection for you, to impart not only the gospel of God to you but our very souls as well ??you had so won our love.

We thank God constantly for this too, that when you received the word of the divine message from us, you took it not as a human word but for what it really is, the word of God. It proves effective in you believers,

for you have started, my brothers, to copy the churches of God in Christ Jesus throughout Judaea; you have suffered from your compatriots just as they have suffered from the Jews,

Brothers, when we were bereft of you for a little while (out of sight, not out of mind), we were the more eager to see you. We had a keen longing for you.

For who is our hope, our joy, our crown of pride (who but you?) in the presence of our Lord Jesus on his arrival?

I sent Timotheus our brother, a minister of God in the gospel of Christ, for your strengthening and encouragement in the faith,

for we told you beforehand, when we were with you, that "we Christians are to have trouble" ??and, as you know, it has been so.)

How can I render thanks enough to God for you, for all the joy you make me feel in the presence of our God?

And may the Lord make you increase and excel in love to one another and to all men (as is my love for you),

that each of you should learn to take a wife for himself chastely and honourably,

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.

You need no one to write you upon brotherly love, for you are yourselves taught by God to love one another,

We would like you, brothers, to understand about those who are asleep in death. You must not grieve for them, like the rest of men who have no hope.

For we tell you, as the Lord has told us, that we the living, who survive till the Lord comes, are by no means to take precedence of those who have fallen asleep.

then we the living, who survive, will be caught up along with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall be with the Lord for ever.

But, brothers, you are not in the darkness for the Day to surprise you like thieves;

for sleepers sleep by night and drunkards are drunk by night,

but we must be sober, we who belong to the day, clad in faith and love as our coat of mail, with the hope of salvation as our helmet ??9 for God destined us not for Wrath but to gain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ,

who died for us that waking in life or sleeping in death we should live together with him.

hold them in special esteem and affection, for the sake of their work. Be at peace among yourselves.

see that none of you pays back evil for evil, but always aim at what is kind to one another and to all the world;

thank God for everything ??such is his will for you in Christ Jesus;

never quench the fire of the Spirit,

Pray for us too, brothers.