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

remembering without ceasing your work of faith and labor of love and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, before our God and Father.

So that you became an example to all those who have faith in Christ in Macedonia and Achaia.

and to [look forward and confidently] wait for [the coming of] His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead—Jesus, who [personally] rescues us from the coming wrath [and draws us to Himself, granting us all the privileges and rewards of a new life with Him].

nor seeking glory from men (neither from you nor from others), when we might have claimed authority as apostles of Christ.

{Although we could have insisted on our own importance} as apostles of Christ, yet we became infants in your midst, like a nursing mother cherishes her own children.

You will bear witness, and God also, that our relations with you who believed in Christ were pure, and upright, and beyond reproach.

to live lives [of honor, moral courage, and personal integrity] worthy of the God who [saves you and] calls you into His own kingdom and glory.

This, too, is a reason why we, on our part, are continually thanking God--because, in receiving the teaching that you had from us, you accepted it, not as the teaching of man, but as what it really is--the teaching of God, which is even now doing its work within you who believe in Christ.

For you, brothers, became imitators of the churches of God which are in Judea in Christ Jesus; for you also suffered the same things from your own countrymen, even as they did from the Jews;

For what is our hope or joy, or crown of rejoicing? Are not ye it in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at his coming?

and sent Timothy, our brother and God's fellow worker in the Good News of Christ, to establish you, and to comfort you concerning your faith;

God himself, our father, and our Lord Jesus Christ guide our journey unto you:

to make your hearts that they might be stable and unblamable in holiness before God our father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, with all his saints.

Finally, my brethren, we intreat and conjure you by the Lord Jesus Christ, to observe the instructions we gave you about your religious conduct, and to make continual progress therein.

Ye remember what commandments we gave you in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

[We also urge you to] make it your aim to live a quiet life, and to attend to your own business matters, and to work with your hands, as we urged you. [Note: Possibly this exhortation was directed toward the tendency of some people there to neglect ordinary responsibilities in view of an imminent return of Christ].

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

For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with God's trumpet. The dead in Christ will rise first,

Then those who died in union with Christ shall rise first; and afterwards we who are still living shall be caught up in the clouds, with them, to meet the Lord in the air; and so we shall be for ever with the Lord.

Now brothers, you do not need to have anything written to you about the times and dates [i.e., of Christ's second coming],

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,

For God did not appoint us to wrath, but to the obtaining of salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ,

who died [willingly] for us, so that whether we are awake (alive) or asleep (dead) [at Christ’s appearing], we will live together with Him [sharing eternal life].

In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus toward you.

May the God of peace himself sanctify you completely. May your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.