As God's own chosen, then, as consecrated and beloved, be clothed with compassion, kindliness, humility, gentleness, and good temper ??13 forbear and forgive each other in any case of complaint; as Christ forgave you, so must you forgive.

Let the inspiration of Christ dwell in your midst with all its wealth of wisdom; teach and train one another with the music of psalms, with hymns, and songs of the spiritual life; praise God with thankful hearts.

Indeed, whatever you say or do, let everything be done in dependence on the Lord Jesus, giving thanks in his name to God the Father.

Fathers, avoid irritating your children, in case they get dispirited.

and pray for me as well, that God may give me an opening for the word, to speak of the open secret of Christ for which I am in custody.

Aristarchus my fellow-prisoner salutes you; so does Mark, the cousin of Barnabas, about whom you have got instructions (if he comes to you, give him a welcome);

and so does Jesus who is called Justus. These are the only comrades in the work of God's realm, belonging to the circumcised, who have been any comfort to me.

Epaphras, who is one of yourselves, salutes you ??a servant of Christ Jesus who is always earnest in prayer for you, that you may stand firm like mature and convinced Christians, whatever be the will of God for you.

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

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

as we recall your active faith and labour of love and patient hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, before our God and Father.

O brothers beloved by God, we know he has chosen you;

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.

People tell us of their own accord about the visit we paid to you, and how you turned to God from idols, to serve a living and a real God

At Philippi, as you know, we had been ill-treated and insulted, but we took courage and confidence in our God to tell you the gospel of God in spite of all the strain.

no, God has attested our fitness to be entrusted with the gospel, and so we tell the gospel not to satisfy men but to satisfy the God who tests our hearts.

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.

You are witnesses, and so is God, to our behaviour among you believers, how pious and upright and blameless it was,

to lead a life worthy of the God who called you to his own realm and glory.

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,

who killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets, who harassed ourselves, who offend God and oppose all men

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

But when Timotheus reached me a moment ago, on his return from you, bringing me the good news of your faith and love and of how you always remember me kindly, longing to see me as I long to see you,

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

May our God and Father and our Lord Jesus direct my way to you!

so as to strengthen your hearts and make them blameless in holiness before our God and Father when our Lord Jesus comes with all his holy ones. [Amen.]

Finally, brothers, we beg and beseech you in the Lord Jesus to follow our instructions about the way you are to live so as to satisfy God; you are leading that life, but you are to excel in it still further.

It is God's will that you should be consecrated, that you abstain from sexual vice,

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.

God did not call us to be impure but to be consecrated;

hence, he who disregards this, disregards not man but the God who gave you his holy Spirit.

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

Since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, then it follows that by means of Jesus God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep.

The Lord himself will descend from heaven with a loud summons, when the archangel calls and the trumpet of God sounds; the dead in Christ will rise first;

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,

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

but test them all, retaining what is good

May the God of peace consecrate you through and through! Spirit, soul, and body, may you be kept without break or blame till the arrival of our Lord Jesus Christ!

PAUL and Silvanus and Timotheus, to the church of the Thessalonians in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ:

grace and peace to you from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

We are bound always to thank God for you, brothers ??it is proper that we should, because your faith grows apace and your mutual love, one and all, is increasing.

So much so, that throughout the churches of God we are proud of you, proud of the stedfastness and faith you display through all the persecutions and the troubles in which you are involved.

They are proof positive of God's equity; you are suffering for the realm of God, and he means to make you worthy of it ??6 since God considers it but just to repay with trouble those who trouble you,

in flaming fire, to inflict punishment on those who ignore God, even on those who refuse obedience to the gospel of our Lord Jesus,

In view of this we always pray for you, asking our God to make you worthy of his calling and by his power to fulfil every good resolve and every effort of faith,

so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you (and you glorified in him), by the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.

not to let your minds get easily unsettled or excited by any spirit of prophecy or any declaration or any letter purporting to come from me, to the effect that the Day of the Lord is already here.

the adversary who vaunts himself above and against every so-called god or object of worship, actually seating himself in the temple of God with the proclamation that he himself is God.

Therefore God visits them with an active delusion, till they put faith in falsehood,

Now we are bound always to thank God for you, brothers beloved by the Lord, because God has chosen you as the first to be reaped for salvation, by the consecration of your spirit and by faith in the Truth;

And may our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father who has loved us and given us eternal encouragement and good hope,

graciously encourage your hearts and strengthen them for all good in deed and word.

May the Lord direct your hearts towards God's love and towards Christ's patience!

Brothers, we charge you in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ to shun any brother who is loafing, instead of following the rule you got from us.

Now in the Lord Jesus Christ we charge and exhort such persons to keep quiet, to do their work and earn their own living.

Paul an apostle of Christ Jesus by command of God our Saviour and Christ Jesus our Hope,

to Timotheus his lawful son in the faith: grace, mercy, peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.

Whereas the aim of the Christian discipline is the love that springs from a pure heart, from a good conscience, and from a sincere faith.

as laid down by that glorious gospel of the blessed God with which I have been entrusted.

To the King of eternity, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honour and glory for ever and ever: Amen.

I transmit these instructions to you, Timotheus my son, in accordance with what the prophets said who first directed me to you; fight the good fight on these lines,

keeping hold of faith and a good conscience. Certain individuals have scouted the good conscience and thus come to grief over their faith ??20 including Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have made over to Satan. That will teach them to stop their blasphemous ongoings!

it is good to pray thus, it is acceptable to our Saviour,

to the God who desires all men to be saved and to attain the knowledge of the Truth.

For "there is one God" and "one intermediary between God and men,

but with good deeds (as befits women who make a religious profession).

I allow no woman to teach or dictate to men, she must keep quiet.

However, women will get safely through childbirth if they continue to be faithful and loving and holy as well as unassuming.

(if a man does not know how to manage his own household, how is he to look after the church of God?);

also, he must have a good reputation among outsiders, in case he incurs slander and is trapped by the devil.

For those who do good service as deacons win a good position for themselves as well as great freedom in the faith of Christ Jesus.

in case I am detained, to let you see how people ought to behave within the household of God; it is the church of the living God, the pillar and bulwark of the Truth.

through plausible sophists who are seared in conscience ??3 men who prohibit marriage and insist on abstinence from foods which God created for believing men, who understand the Truth, to partake of with thanksgiving.

Anything God has created is good, and nothing is to be tabooed ??provided it is eaten with thanksgiving,

Lay this before the brotherhood, and you will be an excellent minister of Christ Jesus, brought up on the truths of the faith and on the lessons of the good doctrine you have already followed.

that "we toil and strive because our hope is fixed upon the living God, the Saviour of all men" ??of believers in particular.

(When a widow has children or grandchildren, they must learn that the first duty of religion is to their own household, and that they should make some return to those who have brought them up. In God's sight this is an acceptable thing.)

The really forlorn widow has her hope fixed on God, night and day she is at her prayers and supplications;

she must have a reputation for good service, as a woman who has brought up children, shown hospitality, washed the feet of the saints, relieved distress, and interested herself in all good works.

In the presence of God and the Lord Jesus Christ and the elect angels, I adjure you to be unprejudiced in carrying out these orders; be absolutely impartial.

Good works are equally conspicuous; and even when they are not, they cannot escape notice for ever.

Let all servants who are under the yoke of slavery remember that their masters are entitled to perfect respect ??otherwise it will be a scandal to the Name of God and to our doctrine.

Those who have Christian believers as their masters must not take liberties with them because they are brothers; they must be all the better servants because those who get the good of their service are believers and beloved. This is what you are to teach and preach.

Those who are eager to be rich get tempted and trapped in many senseless and pernicious propensities that drag men down to ruin and destruction.

Shun that, O man of God, aim at integrity, piety, faith, love, stedfastness, and suavity;

fight in the good fight of the faith, secure that life eternal to which you were called when you voiced the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.

In the presence of God who is the Life of all, and of Christ Jesus who testified to the good confession before Pontius Pilate, I charge you

Charge the rich of this world not to be supercilious, and not to fix their hopes on so uncertain a thing as riches but on the living God who richly provides us with all the enjoyments of life;

tell them to be bountiful, rich in good works, open-handed and generous,

amassing right good treasure for themselves in the world to come, in order to secure the life which is life indeed.

Paul an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God in the service of the Life he has promised in Christ Jesus ??2 to his beloved son Timotheus: grace, mercy, peace, from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.

I render thanks to God, the God of my fathers whom I worship with a pure conscience, as I mention you constantly in my prayers.

for God has not given us a timid spirit but a spirit of power and love and discipline.

So do not be ashamed to testify to our Lord, and do not be ashamed of a prisoner of the Lord like me; join me in bearing suffering for the gospel by the power of the God

for which I have to suffer imprisonment as if I were a criminal. (But there is no prison for the word of God.)

Remind men of this: adjure them before the Lord not to bandy arguments ??no good comes out of that, it only means the undoing of your audience.

Do your utmost to let God see that you at least are a sound workman, with no need to be ashamed of the way you handle the word of the Truth.