in everything give thanks. For this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.

For this is God’s will: that you become holy, that you keep away from sexual immorality,

For how can we thank God enough for you, for all the joy we feel because of you before our God?

We know, brothers and sisters loved by God, that he has chosen you,

For people everywhere report how you welcomed us and how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God

not in lustful passion like the Gentiles who do not know God.

And so we too constantly thank God that when you received God’s message that you heard from us, you accepted it not as a human message, but as it truly is, God’s message, which is at work among you who believe.

For God did not call us to impurity but in holiness.

We thank God always for all of you as we mention you constantly in our prayers,

Now may God our Father himself and our Lord Jesus direct our way to you.

but just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we declare it, not to please people but God, who examines our hearts.

Consequently the one who rejects this is not rejecting human authority but God, who gives his Holy Spirit to you.

But although we suffered earlier and were mistreated in Philippi, as you know, we had the courage in our God to declare to you the gospel of God in spite of much opposition.

For God did not destine us for wrath but for gaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.

For we never appeared with flattering speech, as you know, nor with a pretext for greed – God is our witness –

exhorting and encouraging you and insisting that you live in a way worthy of God who calls you to his own kingdom and his glory.

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

You are witnesses, and so is God, as to how holy and righteous and blameless our conduct was toward you who believe.

For you became imitators, brothers and sisters, of God’s churches in Christ Jesus that are in Judea, because you too suffered the same things from your own countrymen as they in fact did from the Jews,

because we recall in the presence of our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and endurance of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.