1 Thessalonians 1

I, Paul, am writing this letter. Silas and Timothy join me in writing.

We are sending this letter to you, the members of the church in Thessalonica. You belong to God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

May grace and peace be given to you.

Paul Gives Thanks for the Thessalonians’ Faith

This letter is from Paul, Silas,^[a] and Timothy.

We are writing to the church in Thessalonica, to you who belong to God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

May God give you grace and peace.

The Faith of the Thessalonian Believers

We always thank God for all of you. We keep on praying for you.

We always thank God for all of you and pray for you constantly.

We remember you when we pray to our God and Father. Your work is produced by your faith. Your service is the result of your love. Your strength to continue comes from your hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.

As we pray to our God and Father about you, we think of your faithful work, your loving deeds, and the enduring hope you have because of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Brothers and sisters, you are loved by God. We know that he has chosen you.

We know, dear brothers and sisters,^[b] that God loves you and has chosen you to be his own people.

Our good news didn’t come to you only in words. It came with power. It came with the Holy Spirit’s help. He gave us complete faith in what we were preaching. You know how we lived among you for your good.

For when we brought you the Good News, it was not only with words but also with power, for the Holy Spirit gave you full assurance^[c] that what we said was true. And you know of our concern for you from the way we lived when we were with you.

We and the Lord were your examples. You followed us. You welcomed our message even when you were suffering terribly. You welcomed it with the joy the Holy Spirit gives.

So you received the message with joy from the Holy Spirit in spite of the severe suffering it brought you. In this way, you imitated both us and the Lord.

So you became a model to all the believers in the lands of Macedonia and Achaia.

As a result, you have become an example to all the believers in Greece—throughout both Macedonia and Achaia.^[d]

The Lord’s message rang out from you. That was true not only in Macedonia and Achaia. Your faith in God has also become known everywhere. So we don’t have to say anything about it.

And now the word of the Lord is ringing out from you to people everywhere, even beyond Macedonia and Achaia, for wherever we go we find people telling us about your faith in God. We don’t need to tell them about it,

The believers themselves report the kind of welcome you gave us. They tell about how you turned away from statues of gods. And you turned to serve the living and true God.

for they keep talking about the wonderful welcome you gave us and how you turned away from idols to serve the living and true God.

They tell about how you are waiting for his Son to come from heaven. God raised him from the dead. He is Jesus. He saves us from God’s anger, and his anger is sure to come.

And they speak of how you are looking forward to the coming of God’s Son from heaven—Jesus, whom God raised from the dead. He is the one who has rescued us from the terrors of the coming judgment.