1 Thessalonians 2
1 For you yourselves, brethren, know that our visit to you did not fail of its purpose.
FOR ye yourselves, brethren, know our entrance in to you, that it was not in vain.
2 But, as you will remember, after we had already met with suffering and outrage at Philippi, we summoned up boldness, by the help of our God, to tell you God's Good News amid much opposition.
But though we had suffered before, and were infamously treated, as ye know, at Philippi, we were bold in our God to preach unto you the gospel of God amidst a great conflict.
3 For our preaching was not grounded on a delusion, nor prompted by mingled motives, nor was there fraud in it.
And our exhortation originated not from delusion, or impurity, or from guile;
4 But as God tested and approved us before entrusting us with His Good News, so in what we say we are seeking not to please men but to please God, who tests and approves our motives.
but as we have been approved of God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak, not as pleasing men, but God, who trieth our hearts.
5 For, as you are well aware, we have never used the language of flattery nor have we found pretexts for enriching ourselves--God is our witness;
For neither at any time used we insinuating language, as ye know, nor a pretext for covetousness; God is witness:
6 nor did we seek glory either from you or from any other mere men, although we might have stood on our dignity as Christ's Apostles.
not seeking glory from men, neither from you, nor from others, though we might have been burdensome, as apostles of Christ.
7 On the contrary, in our relations to you we showed ourselves as gentle as a mother is when she tenderly nurses her own children.
But we were gentle in the midst of you, as a nurse cherisheth her own infants.
8 Seeing that we were thus drawn affectionately towards you, it would have been a joy to us to have imparted to you not only God's Good News, but to have given our very lives also, because you had become very dear to us.
So, tenderly affected towards you, we could with pleasure have imparted to you not the gospel of God only, but our own lives also, because ye were beloved by us.
9 For you remember, brethren, our labour and toil: how, working night and day so as not to become a burden to any one of you, we came and proclaimed among you God's Good News.
For ye remember, brethren, our labour and toil: for night and day working hard, that we might be no burden to any of you, we preached unto you the gospel of God.
10 You yourselves are witnesses--and God is witness--how holy and upright and blameless our dealings with you believers were.
Ye are witnesses, and God also, how holily, and justly, and faultlessly we conducted ourselves among you that believe:
11 For you know that we acted towards every one of you as a father does towards his own children, encouraging and cheering you,
as ye know how we treated every one of you, as a father doth his children, exhorting you, and admonishing, and conjuring you,
12 and imploring you to live lives worthy of fellowship with God who is inviting you to share His own Kingship and glory.
that ye should walk worthy of God, as calling you into his kingdom and glory.
13 And for this further reason we render unceasing thanks to God, that when you received God's Message from our lips, it was as no mere message from men that you embraced it, but as--what it really is--God's Message, which also does its work in the hearts of you who believe.
For this cause do we also give thanks to God unceasingly, because when ye received the word reported by us from God, ye received it not as the word of man, but, as it is in truth, the word of God, which worketh also effectually in you that believe.
14 For you, brethren, followed the example of the Churches of God in Christ Jesus which are in Judaea; seeing that you endured the same ill-treatment at the hands of your countrymen, as they did at the hands of the Jews.
For ye, brethren, became imitators of the churches of God which are in Judea, in Christ Jesus: for ye suffered the same things also yourselves from your own countrymen, as they too have of the Jews;
15 Those Jewish persecutors killed both the Lord Jesus and the Prophets, and drove us out of their midst. They are displeasing to God, and are the enemies of all mankind;
who both murdered the Lord Jesus and their own prophets, and have persecuted us, and please not God, and are in opposition to all mankind;
16 for they still try to prevent our preaching to the Gentiles so that they may find salvation. They thus continually fill up the measure of their own sins, and God's anger in its severest form has overtaken them.
forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles, that they might be saved, to fill up the measure of their iniquities always: but wrath is coming upon them to the extremity.
17 But we, brethren, having been for a short time separated from you in bodily presence, though not in heart, endeavoured all the more earnestly, with intense longing, to see you face to face.
But we, brethren, bereaved of you for a short moment, in person, not in heart, have more abundantly longed to see your face with great desire.
18 On this account we wanted to come to you--at least I Paul wanted again and again to do so--but Satan hindered us.
Therefore we wished to have come unto you, even I Paul, once and again; but Satan prevented us.
19 For what is our hope or joy, or the crown of which we boast? Is it not you yourselves in the presence of our Lord Jesus at His Coming?
For what is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing? Are not even ye in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at his coming?
20 Yes, you are our glory and our joy.
For ye are our glory and joy.
