[This letter is from] Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy, [and is being sent] to the church of the Thessalonians in [fellowship with] God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

May you have unearned favor and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

We ought to thank God for you always, brothers, since it is proper, because your faith is growing so much and the love that every one of you has for each other is increasing more and more.

Therefore, we ourselves speak proudly about you among the churches of God because of your steadfastness and faith amid all the persecutions and afflictions that you are enduring.

The way you are faithfully enduring [such] suffering for the kingdom of God is clear evidence that God's judgment is right in [eventually] counting you worthy of it [i.e., of entering the eternal phase of the kingdom].

For it is a just thing for God to repay with affliction those people who are troubling you,

He will inflict punishment on those people who do not know God [as Savior], and on those who do not obey the Gospel message of our Lord Jesus.

On that day Jesus will return to be honored by His saints [i.e., God's holy people] and to be marveled at [i.e., in reverence] by all those who had believed [in Him]. [This will happen] because you have believed our testimony to you [about Christ].

This is why we always pray for you also, so that our God will consider you worthy to be [i.e., to have been] called [into the kingdom] by Him, and will fulfill, by His power, every good purpose [or, "desire for goodness"] of yours and every act produced by [your] faith.

[We pray this] so that the name of our Lord Jesus will be honored by you, and that you will be honored by Him, according to the unearned favor of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.

[for] he opposes [the true Gospel message] and exalts himself against everything that is called "God" or that which is worshiped. So, he sits in God's temple [i.e., the church ?] displaying himself as [though he were] God.

And this is the reason that God sends them a strong delusion [to influence them]: It is so that they would believe the lie,

But we ought to thank God for you always, brothers [who are] dearly loved by the Lord, because God has chosen you from the beginning [Note: Some manuscripts use the Greek word for "firstfruits" instead of "beginning" here, but it is difficult to know in what sense the Thessalonian Christians were "first"], in order to be saved through being set apart by the Holy Spirit and through belief of the truth [of the Gospel].

Now, may our Lord Jesus Christ Himself and God our Father, who has loved us and given us never ending encouragement and good hope through [His] unearned favor,

encourage and strengthen your hearts in every good thing you do and say.

And may the Lord direct your hearts to love [people] as God does, and to be steadfast as Christ was.

For even when we were with you, we gave you this order: If any person does not [want to] work, he should not [get to] eat.

But you, brothers, should not get tired of doing what is right.