Letters to the Churches

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;

forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they may be saved; to fill up their sins always: but the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost.

But we, brethren, being bereaved of you for a short season, in presence not in heart, endeavored the more exceedingly to see your face with great desire:

because we would fain have come unto you, I Paul once and again; and Satan hindered us.

For what is our hope, or joy, or crown of glorying? Are not even ye, before our Lord Jesus at his coming?

For ye are our glory and our joy.

Wherefore when we could no longer forbear, we thought it good to be left behind at Athens alone;

and sent Timothy, our brother and God’s minister in the gospel of Christ, to establish you, and to comfort you concerning your faith;

that no man be moved by these afflictions; for yourselves know that hereunto we are appointed.

For verily, when we were with you, we told you beforehand that we are to suffer affliction; even as it came to pass, and ye know.

For this cause I also, when I could no longer forbear, sent that I might know your faith, lest by any means the tempter had tempted you, and our labor should be in vain.

But when Timothy came even now unto us from you, and brought us glad tidings of your faith and love, and that ye have good remembrance of us always, longing to see us, even as we also to see you;

for this cause, brethren, we were comforted over you in all our distress and affliction through your faith:

for now we live, if ye stand fast in the Lord.

For what thanksgiving can we render again unto God for you, for all the joy wherewith we joy for your sakes before our God;

night and day praying exceedingly that we may see your face, and may perfect that which is lacking in your faith?

Now may our God and Father himself, and our Lord Jesus, direct our way unto you:

and the Lord make you to increase and abound in love one toward another, and toward all men, even as we also do toward you;

to the end he may establish your hearts unblamable in holiness before our God and Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints.

Finally then, brethren, we beseech and exhort you in the Lord Jesus, that, as ye received of us how ye ought to walk and to please God, even as ye do walk,—that ye abound more and more.

For ye know what charge we gave you through the Lord Jesus.