Beginning

The Gospel comes to Thessalonica

1 Paul, Silvanus and Timothy, to the assembly of Thessalonians in God the father and the Lord Jesus, the Messiah. Grace to you and peace.

² We always give thanks to God for all of you, as we make mention of you in our prayers. ³ We constantly remember the accomplishment of your faith, the hard work of your love, and the patience of your hope in our Lord Jesus the Messiah, in the presence of God our father.

⁴ Dear family, beloved by God, we know that God has chosen you, ⁵ because our gospel didn’t come to you in word only, but in power, and in the holy spirit, and in great assurance. You know what sort of people we became for your sake, when we were among you.

The Thessalonians’ faith

⁶ And you learned how to copy us—and the Lord! When you received the word, you had a lot to suffer, but you also had the holy spirit’s joy. ⁷ As a result, you became a model for all the believers in both Macedonia and Achaea. ⁸ For the word of the Lord has resonated out from you, not only in Macedonia and Achaea; your faith in God has gone out to people everywhere. This means that we haven’t had to say anything. ⁹ They themselves tell the story of the kind of welcome we had from you, and how you turned to God from idols, to serve a living and true God, ¹⁰ and to wait for his son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead—Jesus, who delivers us from the coming fury.

Paul’s ministry in Thessalonica

2 For you yourselves know, my dear family, that our visit to you didn’t turn out to be empty. ² On the contrary. We had already undergone awful things and been shamefully treated in Philippi, as you know; but we were open and exuberant in our God in declaring to you the gospel of God, despite a good deal of opposition.

³ When we make our appeal, you see, we are not deceiving people. We don’t have any impure motives; we aren’t playing some kind of trick. ⁴ Rather, we speak as people whom God has validated to be entrusted with the gospel; not with a view to pleasing people, but in order to please God, who validates our hearts.

⁵ For we never used flattering words, as you know. Nor were we saying things insincerely, as a cover-up for greed, as God is our witness. ⁶ We weren’t looking for recognition from anybody, either you or anyone else— ⁷ though we could have imposed on you, as the Messiah’s emissaries. But we were gentle among you, like a nurse taking care of her own children. ⁸ We were so devoted to you that we gladly intended to share with you not only the gospel of God but our own lives, because you became so dear to us.

Paul’s fatherly concern

⁹ My dear family, you will recall our hard toil, our labor. We worked night and day so as not to be a burden to any of you while we announced to you the gospel of God. ¹⁰ You are witnesses, and so is God, of our holy, upright and blameless behavior towards you believers. ¹¹ You know how, like a father to his own children, ¹² we encouraged each of you, and strengthened you, and made it clear to you that you should behave in a manner worthy of the God who calls you into his own kingdom and glory.

The persecuted church

¹³ So, therefore, we thank God constantly that when you received the word of God which you heard from us, you accepted it, not as the word of a mere human being but—as it really is!—the word of God which is at work in you believers. ¹⁴ For, my dear family, you came to copy God’s assemblies in Judaea in the Messiah, Jesus. You suffered the same things from your own people as they did from those of the Judaeans ¹⁵ who killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and who expelled us. They displease God; they oppose all people; ¹⁶ they forbid us to speak to the Gentiles so that they may be saved. This has had the effect, all along, of completing the full total of their sins. But the fury has come upon them for good.

Paul’s joy and crown

¹⁷ As for us, my dear family, we were snatched away from you for a short time, in person though not in heart. We longed eagerly, with a great desire, to see you face to face. ¹⁸ That’s why we wanted to come to you—I, Paul, again and again—but the satan got in our way.

¹⁹ Don’t you see? When our Lord Jesus is present once more, what is our hope, our joy, the crown of our boasting before him? It’s you! ²⁰ Yes: you are our glory and our joy.

The sending of Timothy

3 So, when it got to the point that we couldn’t bear it any longer, Silvanus and I decided to remain in Athens by ourselves, ² and we sent Timothy—our brother, and God’s fellow worker in the gospel of the Messiah—so that he could strengthen you and bring comfort to your faith, ³ so that you wouldn’t be pulled off course by these sufferings. You yourselves know, don’t you, that this is what we are bound to face. ⁴ For when we were with you, we told you ahead of time that we would undergo suffering; that’s how it has turned out, and you know about it. ⁵ That’s why, when I too couldn’t bear it any longer, I sent Timothy, so that I could find out about your faithfulness, in case somehow the tempter had put you to the test and our work would be in ruins.

Timothy’s report

⁶ But now Timothy has returned to us from you. He has brought us the good news of your faith—and your love; he has told us that you always have good memories of us, and that you are longing to see us, just as we are to see you. ⁷ So, my dear family, we are comforted about you, in all our difficulties and troubles, because of your faithfulness. ⁸ Now, you see, we are really alive, if you are standing firm in the Lord. ⁹ For what thanks can we give back to God about you, for all the joy which we celebrate because of you in the presence of our God, ¹⁰ praying with more fervor than you can imagine, night and day, that we may see you face to face and may put into proper order anything that is lacking in your faith?

Paul’s words of blessing

¹¹ Now may God himself, our father, and our Lord Jesus, steer us on our way to you. ¹² And may the Lord make your love for one another, and for everybody, abound and overflow, just as ours does for you. ¹³ That way, your hearts will be strengthened and kept blameless in holiness before God our father when our Lord Jesus is present again with all his holy ones. Amen.

Instructions on holy living

4 What remains, my dear family, is for us to ask you, and indeed to urge you in the Lord Jesus, that you should continue more and more to behave in the manner that you received from us as the appropriate way of behaving and of pleasing God. ² You know, of course, what instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus. ³ This is God’s will, you see: he wants you to be holy, to keep well away from fornication. ⁴ Each of you should know how to control your own body in holiness and honor, ⁵ not in the madness of lust like Gentiles who don’t know God. ⁶ Nobody should break this rule, or cheat a fellow Christian in this area; the Lord is the avenger in all such matters, just as we told you before and testified most solemnly. ⁷ For God did not call us to a dirty life, but in holiness. ⁸ Anyone who rejects this, then, is not rejecting a human command, but the God who gives his holy spirit to you.

A life of love

⁹ Now, about charitable concern for the whole family: I don’t really need to write to you, because you yourselves have been taught by God to show loving care for one another. ¹⁰ Indeed, you are doing this for all the Christian family in the whole of Macedonia. But we urge you, my dear family, to make this an even more prominent part of your lives. ¹¹ You should make it your ambition to live peacefully, to mind your own business, and to work with your own hands, just as we commanded you, ¹² so that you may behave in a way which outsiders will respect, and so that none of you may be in financial difficulties.

The Lord’s coming

¹³ Now concerning those who have fallen asleep: we don’t want you to remain in ignorance about them, my dear family. We don’t want you to have the kind of grief that other people do, people who don’t have any hope. ¹⁴ For, you see, if we believe that Jesus died and rose, that’s the way God will also, through Jesus, bring with him those who have fallen asleep.

¹⁵ Let me explain (this is the word of the Lord I’m speaking to you!). We who are alive, who remain until the Lord is present, will not find ourselves ahead of those who fell asleep. ¹⁶ The Lord himself will come down from heaven with a shouted order, with the voice of an archangel and the sound of God’s trumpet. The Messiah’s dead will rise first; ¹⁷ then we who are alive, who are left, will be snatched up with them among the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air. And in this way we shall always be with the Lord. ¹⁸ So comfort each other with these words.

Children of light

5 Now when it comes to specific times and dates, my dear family, you don’t need to have anyone write to you. ² You yourselves know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a midnight robber. ³ When people say, “Peace and security!” then swift ruin will arrive at their doorstep, like the pains that come over a woman in labor, and they won’t have a chance to escape.

⁴ But as for you, my dear family—you are not in darkness. That day won’t surprise you like a robber. ⁵ You are all children of light, children of the day! We don’t belong to the night, or to darkness. ⁶ So, then, let’s not go to sleep, like the others, but let’s keep awake and stay sober.

⁷ People who sleep, you see, sleep at night. People who get drunk get drunk at night. ⁸ But we daytime people should be self-controlled, clothing ourselves with the breastplate of faith and love, and with the helmet of the hope of salvation; ⁹ because the road on which God has placed us leads, not to fury, but to gaining salvation, through our Lord Jesus the Messiah. ¹⁰ He died for us, so that whether we stay awake or go to sleep we should live together with him. ¹¹ So strengthen one another, and build each other up, just as you are doing.

Final exhortations

¹² This, my dear family, is the request we make of you. Take note of those who work among you and exercise leadership over you in the Lord, those who give you instruction. ¹³ Give them the highest possible rank of love because of their work. Live at peace among yourselves.

¹⁴ And we beg you, my dear family: warn those who step out of line; console the downcast; help the weak; be warm-hearted and patient towards everybody. ¹⁵ Make sure nobody pays anyone back evil for evil. Instead, always find the way to do good to one another, and to everybody.

Final blessings and charge

²³ Now may the God of peace himself make you completely holy. May your complete spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus the Messiah. ²⁴ The one who calls you is faithful; he will do it.

²⁵ My dear family, pray for us.

²⁶ Greet the whole family with a holy kiss. ²⁷ I charge you by the Lord to have this letter read to the whole family.

²⁸ The grace of our Lord Jesus the Messiah be with you.