1 Thessalonians 3:1–4:18

¹Wherefore no longer forbearing, we thought good to be left in Athens alone, ²and did send Timotheus—our brother, and a ministrant of God, and our fellow-workman in the good news of the Christ—to establish you, and to comfort you concerning your faith, ³that no one be moved in these tribulations, for yourselves have known that for this we are set, ⁴for even when we were with you, we said to you beforehand, that we are about to suffer tribulation, as also it did come to pass, and ye have known it; ⁵because of this also, I, no longer forbearing, did send to know your faith, lest he who is tempting did tempt you, and in vain might be our labour.

⁶And now Timotheus having come unto us from you, and having declared good news to us of your faith and love, and that ye have a good remembrance of us always, desiring much to see us, as we also to see you, ⁷because of this we were comforted, brethren, over you, in all our tribulation and necessity, through your faith, ⁸because now we live, if ye may stand fast in the Lord; ⁹for what thanks are we able to recompense to God for you, for all the joy with which we do joy because of you in the presence of our God? ¹⁰night and day exceedingly beseeching, that we might see your face, and perfect the things lacking in your faith.

¹¹And our God and Father Himself, and our Lord Jesus Christ, direct our way unto you, ¹²and you the Lord cause to increase and to abound in the love to one another, and to all, even as we also to you, ¹³to the establishing your hearts blameless in sanctification before our God and Father, in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ with all His saints.

Chapter 4

¹As to the rest, then, brethren, we request you, and call upon you in the Lord Jesus, as ye did receive from us how it behoveth you to walk and to please God, that ye may abound the more, ²for ye have known what commands we gave you through the Lord Jesus, ³for this is the will of God—your sanctification; that ye abstain from the whoredom, ⁴that each of you know his own vessel to possess in sanctification and honour, ⁵not in the affection of desire, as also the nations that were not knowing God, ⁶that no one go beyond and defraud in the matter his brother, because an avenger is the Lord of all these, as also we spake before to you and testified, ⁷for God did not call us on uncleanness, but in sanctification; ⁸he, therefore, who is despising—doth not despise man, but God, who also did give His Holy Spirit to us.

⁹And concerning the brotherly love, ye have no need of my writing to you, for ye yourselves are God-taught to love one another, ¹⁰for ye do it also to all the brethren who are in all Macedonia; and we call upon you, brethren, to abound still more, ¹¹and to study to be quiet, and to do your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we did command you, ¹²that ye may walk becomingly unto those without, and may have lack of nothing.

¹³And I do not wish you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, that ye may not sorrow, as also the rest who have not hope, ¹⁴for if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, so also God those asleep through Jesus he will bring with him, ¹⁵for this to you we say in the word of the Lord, that we who are living—who do remain over to the presence of the Lord—may not precede those asleep, ¹⁶because the Lord himself, in a shout, in the voice of a chief-messenger, and in the trump of God, shall come down from heaven, and the dead in Christ shall rise first, ¹⁷then we who are living, who are remaining over, together with them shall be caught away in clouds to meet the Lord in air, and so always with the Lord we shall be; ¹⁸so, then, comfort ye one another in these words.

Chapter 5