Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy to the Thessalonian church in union with God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ: spiritual blessing and peace be to you.

We always thank God for you all as we continually mention you in our prayers,

for we can never for a moment before our God forget your energizing faith, your toiling love, and your enduring hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.

For we know, brothers so beloved by God, that He has chosen you,

for our preaching of the good news came to you not entirely in words but with power and with the Holy Spirit and with absolute certainty (for you know the kind of men we were among you for your own sakes).

(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.

For the people themselves tell us what a welcome you gave us, and how you turned from idols to the true God, to serve the God who lives on and is real,

But, although we had just suffered and been insulted, as you remember, at Philippi, we again summoned courage by the help of God, in spite of the terrific strain, to tell you God's good news.

for since we have been so approved by God as to be entrusted with the good news, we are now telling it, not to please men but God, who proves and finds approved our hearts.

Indeed, we never resorted to flattery, as you are well aware, nor to any pretext for making money; God is our witness.

Because we were yearning for you so tenderly, we were willing, not only to share with you God's good news, but to lay down our very lives too for you, all because you were so dearly loved by us.

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

to live lives worthy of God who calls you into His kingdom and His glory.

For another reason too, we, as far as we are concerned, are constantly giving thanks to God; that is, when you received the message you heard from us, you welcomed it not as the message of men but as the message of God, as it really is, which keeps on working in you who believe.

For you, brothers, followed the example of God's churches in Judea that are in union with Christ Jesus, for you too have suffered the same sort of ill-treatment at the hands of your fellow-countrymen as they did at the hands of the Jews,

who killed the Lord Jesus and persecuted the prophets and us; and who continue to displease God and show themselves in opposition to all mankind,

by trying to keep us from speaking to the heathen, so that they may be saved, so as always to fill to the brim the cup of their sins. But at last God's wrath has come upon them.

and so I sent my brother Timothy, God's minister in the preaching of the good news of Christ, to strengthen and encourage you in your faith,

But now, since Timothy has just come back to me from you, and brought me good tidings of your faith and love, and told me how kindly you remembered me and that you are longing to see me as much as I am to see you,

For how can I render God enough thanks for you, for all the joy I have on account of you in the presence of our God,

Now may our God and Father Himself and our Lord Jesus guide my way to you!

so that He may strengthen your hearts to be faultless in purity in the sight of God, when our Lord Jesus comes back with all His consecrated ones.

Now, brothers, we ask and beg you, in the face of our union with the Lord Jesus, as you once received from us how you ought to live so as to please God -- as indeed you are living -- to continue to live this life better and better.

For it is God's will that you should keep pure in person, that you should practice abstinence from sexual immorality,

not out of evil passions as the heathen do who do not know God;

For God did not call us to a life of immorality, but to one of personal purity.

So whoever rejects this teaching is rejecting not man but God who continues to put His Spirit in you.

Now as to brotherly love, you have no need of anyone's writing you, for you have yourselves been taught by God to love one another,

For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, then through Jesus, God will bring back with Him those who have fallen asleep.

For the Lord Himself, at the summons sounded by the archangel's call and by God's trumpet, will come down from heaven, and first of all the dead in union with Christ will rise,

For those who sleep at night and those who get drunk are drunken at night,

but let us who belong to the day keep sober, clothed with faith and love for a coat of mail and with the hope of salvation for a helmet.

For God appointed us not to reap His wrath but to gain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ,

Make it a habit to give thanks for everything, for this is God's will for you through Christ Jesus.

but continue to prove all things until you can approve them, and then hold on to what is good.

May God Himself, who gave you peace, consecrate your whole being. May you be safely kept, spirit, soul, and body, so as to be blameless when our Lord Jesus Christ comes back.

Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy to the Thessalonian church in union with God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ:

We always ought to be thanking God for you, brothers, as it is right to do so, because your faith is growing so much and the love of every one of you for one another is increasing

so that we are always boasting of you among the churches of God for your patient endurance and faith, in spite of your persecutions and crushing sorrows which you are enduring.

This is a proof of God's righteous judgment, His aim being to let you show yourselves worthy of His kingdom, for which you are suffering; since,

indeed, it is right for God to repay with crushing sorrows those who cause you these crushing sorrows,

in a flame of fire, who will take vengeance on those who do not know God, that is, those who will not listen to the good news of our Lord Jesus.

With this in view we are always praying for you too, that our God may make you worthy of His call, and by His power fully satisfy your every desire for goodness, and complete every activity of your faith,

so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you and you through union with Him, in accordance with the favor of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.

the one who keeps up his opposition and so far exalts himself above every so-called god or object of worship, that he actually takes his seat in the sanctuary of God, proclaiming himself to be God.

This is why God sends them a misleading influence till they actually believe what is false,

We ought always to be thanking God for you, brothers dearly loved by the Lord, because God chose you from the beginning for salvation through the Spirit's consecration of you and through your faith in the truth,

and to this end He called you by our preaching of the good news, so that you may obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.

May our Lord Jesus Christ Himself and God our Father, who has loved us and graciously given us encouragement that is eternal, and a hope that is well-founded,

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

May the Lord guide you into a realization of God's love for you and into a patient endurance like Christ's.

Now on the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ we charge and exhort such persons to do their own work with quiet and eat their own bread.

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

to Timothy my genuine child in faith: spiritual blessing, mercy, and peace be with you from God our Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.

to stop devoting themselves to myths and never-ending pedigrees, for such things lead to controversies rather than stimulate our trusteeship to God through faith.

But the aim of your instruction is to be love that flows out of a pure heart, a good conscience, and a sincere faith.

as measured by the glorious good news of the blessed God, with which I have been entrusted.

To the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever! Amen.

This is the instruction which I entrust to you, my son Timothy, which is in accordance with the prophetic utterances formerly made about you, that you may, aided by them, continue to fight the good fight,

by keeping your hold on faith and a good conscience; for some have thrust the latter aside and so have made shipwreck of their faith.

for kings and all who are in authority, so that we may lead peaceful, quiet lives in perfect piety and seriousness.

This is the right thing to do and it pleases God our Saviour,

For there is but one God and one intermediary between God and men, the man Christ Jesus

but with good deeds; for this is appropriate for women who profess to be pious.

A married woman must learn in quiet and in perfect submission.

I do not permit a married woman to practice teaching or domineering over a husband; she must keep quiet.

But women will be saved through motherhood, if they continue to live in faith, love, and purity, blended with good sense.

(if a man does not know how to manage his own house, how can he take care of a church of God?).

He must also have a good reputation with outsiders, or else he may incur reproach and fall into the devil's trap.

For those who render good service win a good standing for themselves in their faith in Christ Jesus.

so that, if I am detained, you may know how people ought to conduct themselves in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth.

who forbid people to marry and teach them to abstain from certain sorts of food which God created for the grateful enjoyment of those who have faith and a clear knowledge of the truth.

For everything in God's creation is good, and nothing is to be refused, provided it is accepted with thanksgiving;

for in this way it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer.

If you continue to put these things before the brothers, you will be a good minister of Christ Jesus, ever feeding your own soul on the truths of the faith and of the fine teaching which you have followed.

To this end we are toiling and struggling, because we have fixed our hope on the living God, who is the Saviour of all mankind, especially of believers.

But if a widow has children or grandchildren, they must first learn to practice piety in the treatment of their own families, and to pay the debt they owe their parents or grandparents, for this is acceptable to God.

But a woman who is really a widow and lives alone has fixed her hope on God, and night and day devotes herself to prayers and entreaties,

must have a reputation for doing good deeds, as bringing up children, being hospitable to strangers, washing the feet of God's people, helping people in distress, or devoting herself to any sort of doing good.

Keep the young widows off this roll, for when they get to indulging their lower nature in opposition to Christ, they want to marry,

Besides, as they get the habit of gadding about from house to house, they learn to be idle, and not only idle but gossips and busybodies, talking of things they ought not to mention.

Elders who do their duties well should be considered as deserving twice the salary they get especially those who keep on toiling in preaching and teaching.

I solemnly charge you before God and Christ Jesus and the chosen angels, to carry out these instructions without prejudice and with perfect impartiality.

Good deeds, too, are usually very evident, and if they are not, they cannot be completely concealed.

All who are under the yoke of slavery must esteem their masters to be deserving the highest respect, so that the name of God and our teaching may not be abused.

Those who have Christian masters must not pay them less respect because they are brothers; they must serve them all the better, because those who get the benefit of their service are believers and so are dear to them. These are the things that you must continue to teach and urge them to do.

But men who keep planning to get rich fall into temptations and snares and many foolish, hurtful desires which plunge people into destruction and ruin.

But you, as a man of God, must be fleeing always from these things; you must constantly strive for uprightness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness.

Keep up the good fight for the faith. Keep your hold on eternal life, to which God called you, when before many witnesses you made the good profession of faith.

Before God who preserves the life of all His creatures and before Christ Jesus who in testifying before Pontius Pilate made His good profession, I solemnly charge you

Continue charging the rich of this world to stop being haughty and not to fix their hope on a thing so uncertain as riches, but on God who richly and ceaselessly provides us with everything for our enjoyment;

charge them to continue doing good and being rich in good deeds, open-handed and generous hearted,

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, in accordance with the promise of the life that comes through union with Christ Jesus,

to my dearly loved child, Timothy: spiritual blessing, mercy, and peace be with you from God our Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.

I thank God, whom I worship, as my forefathers did, with a clear conscience, as I ceaselessly remember you in my prayers. Because I remember the tears you shed for me, I am always longing night and day

For the Spirit that God has given us does not impart timidity but power and love and self-control.

So you must never be ashamed of me His prisoner, but suffer for the good news in fellowship with me and by the power of God.

but has only recently been made known through the appearance of our Saviour Christ Jesus, who through the good news has put a stop to the power of death, and brought life and immortality to light.

Of this good news I have been appointed a preacher, an apostle, and a teacher.

Yes, when he got to Rome he took pains to look me up and finally found me.