Letters to the Churches

Paul, and Silvanus, and Timothy, unto the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ: Grace to you and peace.

We give thanks to God always for you all, making mentionof youin our prayers;

remembering without ceasing your work of faith and labor of love and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, before our God and Father;

knowing, brethren beloved of God, your election,

how that our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Spirit, and in much assurance; even as ye know what manner of men we showed ourselves toward you for your sake.

And ye became imitators of us, and of the Lord, having received the word in much affliction, with joy of the Holy Spirit;

so that ye became an ensample to all that believe in Macedonia and in Achaia.

For from you hath sounded forth the word of the Lord, not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but in every place your faith to God-ward is gone forth; so that we need not to speak anything.

For they themselves report concerning us what manner of entering in we had unto you; and how ye turned unto God from idols, to serve a living and true God,

and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, who delivereth us from the wrath to come.

For yourselves, brethren, know our entering in unto you, that it hath not been found vain:

but having suffered before and been shamefully treated, as ye know, at Philippi, we waxed bold in our God to speak unto you the gospel of God in much conflict.

For our exhortation is not of error, nor of uncleanness, nor in guile:

but even as we have been approved of God to be intrusted with the gospel, so we speak; not as pleasing men, but God who proveth our hearts.

For neither at any time were we found using words of flattery, as ye know, nor a cloak of covetousness, God is witness;

nor seeking glory of men, neither from you nor from others, when we might have claimed authority as apostles of Christ.

But we were gentle in the midst of you, as when a nurse cherisheth her own children:

even so, being affectionately desirous of you, we were well pleased to impart unto you, not the gospel of God only, but also our own souls, because ye were become very dear to us.

For ye remember, brethren, our labor and travail: working night and day, that we might not burden any of you, we preached unto you the gospel of God.

Ye are witnesses, and God also, how holily and righteously and unblamably we behaved ourselves toward you that believe:

as ye know how we dealt with each one of you, as a father with his own children, exhorting you, and encouraging you, and testifying,

to the end that ye should walk worthily of God, who calleth you into his own kingdom and glory.

And for this cause we also thank God without ceasing, that, when ye received from us the word of the message, even the word of God, ye accepted it not as the word of men, but, as it is in truth, the word of God, which also worketh in you that believe.

For ye, brethren, became imitators of the churches of God which are in Judæa in Christ Jesus: for ye also suffered the same things of your own countrymen, even as they did of the Jews;

who both killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and drove out us, and please not God, and are contrary to all men;