Book of Common Prayer

1 Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy send greetings to the church people in the city of Thessalonica. This church belongs to God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

² May God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ, in their kindness, give you much happiness and peace.

³ My brothers, we thank God for you always. It is the right thing to do. You trust him more and more. You all love each other more and more.

⁴ So we are proud of you. We tell the churches of God about you because you are standing strong and you keep on believing in God. Your troubles and hard times do not stop you.

⁵ This proves that God will judge right. And he will say that you are good enough for the kingdom of God because you suffer for it.

⁶ God will do what is right. He will give trouble to those who are troubling you.

⁷ And he will give rest to you who are having troubles, and to us also. He will give this rest when our Lord Jesus comes back from heaven. The Lord Jesus will come with his strong angels in flaming fire.

⁸ He will punish those who do not know God, and those who do not obey the good news of our Lord Jesus.

⁹ They will be destroyed for ever. That will be their punishment. They will be for ever separated from the Lord and from his great and wonderful power.

¹⁰ This will happen on the day he comes. On that day his people will show how great and wonderful he is. And all those who have believed in him will be surprised at how great he is. That means you also, because you believed what we told you.

¹¹ That is why we always talk to God about you. We want our God to make you fit for the good work to which he called you. We ask him to finish his good work of faith which trusts in his power.

¹² In that way you will make the name of our Lord Jesus Christ great. And he will make you great. This will be because of the kindness of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.

²⁵ `So, I tell you this. Do not be troubled about what you will eat or drink to keep alive. Do not be troubled about what you will wear on your body. Life itself is worth more than food, and the body is worth more than clothes.

²⁶ `Look at the birds that fly in the air. They do not plant or cut or keep any food. Yet your Father in heaven feeds them. Are you not worth more than birds?

²⁷ Can any one of you live any longer by troubling yourself about these things?

²⁸ And why are you troubled about clothes? See how the flowers grow in the fields. They do not work or make cloth.

²⁹ I tell you, King Solomon was a great man. But he was not dressed as fine as one of these flowers.

³⁰ God dresses the grass in the fields so it looks nice. It is in the field one day and the next day it is put on the fire. If God dresses the grass like that, he cares much more that you have clothes to wear. You do not believe in God very much!

³¹ `So then, do not keep asking, "What shall we eat?" "What shall we drink?" and "What shall we wear?"

³² It is the people who do not believe in God who work for all these things. Your Father in heaven knows that you need them all.

³³ `Work first for God's kingdom and what he calls good. Then you will have all these things also.

³⁴ `So do not be troubling yourself about tomorrow. Tomorrow will have its own trouble. Today's trouble is enough for today.'