1 Thessalonians 1

⁷To all in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints: Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

¹Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy, To the church of the Thessalonians in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ:

⁵And when Silas and Timothy came down from Macedonia, Paul devoted himself fully to the word, testifying to the Jews that Jesus is the Christ.

⁴Paul was accompanied by Sopater son of Pyrrhus from Berea, Aristarchus and Secundus from Thessalonica, Gaius from Derbe, Timothy, and Tychicus and Trophimus from the province of Asia.

¹⁹For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was proclaimed among you by me and Silvanus and Timothy, was not “Yes” and “No,” but in Him it has always been “Yes.”

¹¹Now the Bereans were more noble-minded than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if these teachings were true.

⁸First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is being proclaimed all over the world.

⁹God, whom I serve with my spirit in preaching the gospel of His Son, is my witness how constantly I remember you

¹⁵For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints,

¹⁶I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers,

⁴I always thank my God, remembering you in my prayers,

³We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you,

³I thank my God every time I remember you.

⁴In every prayer for all of you, I always pray with joy,

⁴I always thank my God for you because of the grace He has given you in Christ Jesus.

¹³And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love; but the greatest of these is love.

¹⁹I know your deeds—your love, your faith, your service, your perseverance—and your latest deeds are greater than your first.

⁶For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. What matters is faith expressing itself through love.

¹¹To this end, we always pray for you, that our God will count you worthy of His calling, and that He will powerfully fulfill your every good desire and work of faith,

²⁴For in this hope we were saved; but hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he can already see?

²⁵But if we hope for what we do not yet see, we wait for it patiently.

³For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome,

¹³But we should always thank God for you, brothers who are loved by the Lord, because God chose you from the beginning to be saved by the sanctification of the Spirit and by faith in the truth.

⁴But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared,

⁵He saved us, not by the righteous deeds we had done, but according to His mercy, through the washing of new birth and renewal by the Holy Spirit.

¹⁰Therefore, brothers, strive to make your calling and election sure. For if you practice these things you will never stumble,

²⁵As He says in Hosea: “I will call them ‘My People’ who are not My people, and I will call her ‘My Beloved’ who is not My beloved,”

¹²Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with hearts of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.

⁴But because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy,

⁵made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in our trespasses. It is by grace you have been saved!

⁷For you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us, because we were not undisciplined among you,

⁸nor did we eat anyone’s food without paying for it. Instead, in labor and toil, we worked night and day so that we would not be a burden to any of you.

²⁰And they went out and preached everywhere, and the Lord worked through them, confirming His word by the signs that accompanied it.

²For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

³I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling.

¹³And we continually thank God because, when you received the word of God that you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but as it truly is, the word of God, which is also now at work in you who believe.

¹⁴To this He called you through our gospel, so that you may share in the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.

¹⁸Thus by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the hope set before us may be strongly encouraged.

¹⁹We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain,

¹You are to imitate me, just as I imitate Christ.

¹⁶Therefore I urge you to imitate me.

⁵²And the disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit.

⁹Not that we lack this right, but we wanted to offer ourselves as an example for you to imitate.

²²But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,

¹¹Beloved, do not imitate what is evil, but what is good. The one who does good is of God; the one who does evil has not seen God.

⁷In everything, show yourself to be an example by doing good works. In your teaching show integrity, dignity,

¹²Let no one despise your youth, but set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity.

³not lording it over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock.

⁸For not only did the message of the Lord ring out from you to Macedonia and Achaia, but your faith in God has gone out to every place, so that we have no need to say anything more.

⁹And when I was with you and in need, I was not a burden to anyone; for the brothers who came from Macedonia supplied my needs. I have refrained from being a burden to you in any way, and I will continue to do so.

¹⁰As surely as the truth of Christ is in me, this boasting of mine will not be silenced in the regions of Achaia.

¹²From there we went to the Roman colony of Philippi, the leading city of that district of Macedonia. And we stayed there several days.

⁸First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is being proclaimed all over the world.

¹⁴How then can they call on the One in whom they have not believed? And how can they believe in the One of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone to preach?

¹⁵And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written: “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!”

⁷How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion, “Your God reigns!”

⁶Then I saw another angel flying overhead, with the eternal gospel to proclaim to those who dwell on the earth—to every nation and tribe and tongue and people.

¹²Demetrius has received a good testimony from everyone, and from the truth itself. We also testify for him, and you know that our testimony is true.

⁴That is why we boast among God’s churches about your perseverance and faith in the face of all the persecution and affliction you are enduring.

¹⁰To this end we labor and strive, because we have set our hope on the living God, who is the Savior of everyone, and especially of those who believe.

²You know that when you were pagans, you were influenced and led astray to mute idols.

⁸Formerly, when you did not know God, you were slaves to those who by nature are not gods.

⁹But now that you know God, or rather are known by God, how is it that you are turning back to those weak and worthless principles? Do you wish to be enslaved by them all over again?

¹¹The Lord will be terrifying to them when He starves all the gods of the earth. Then the nations of every shore will bow in worship to Him, each in its own place.

²⁰This is what the Lord of Hosts says: “Peoples will yet come—the residents of many cities—

²¹and the residents of one city will go to another, saying: ‘Let us go at once to plead before the Lord and to seek the Lord of Hosts. I myself am going.’

¹³And we continually thank God because, when you received the word of God that you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but as it truly is, the word of God, which is also now at work in you who believe.

⁹For God has not appointed us to suffer wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.

⁸He will swallow up death forever. The Lord God will wipe away the tears from every face and remove the disgrace of His people from the whole earth. For the Lord has spoken.

⁹And in that day it will be said, “Surely this is our God; we have waited for Him, and He has saved us. This is the Lord for whom we have waited. Let us rejoice and be glad in His salvation.”

⁹Therefore, since we have now been justified by His blood, how much more shall we be saved from wrath through Him!

¹⁰For if, when we were enemies of God, we were reconciled to Him through the death of His Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through His life!

⁷But when John saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his place of baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?

²⁴But God raised Him from the dead, releasing Him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep Him in its grip.

¹⁶For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a loud command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will be the first to rise.

¹⁷After that, we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will always be with the Lord.