New Testament Plan

¹For you yourselves know, brothers, that our coming to you was not in vain.

²But though we had already suffered and been shamefully treated at Philippi, as you know, we had boldness in our God to declare to you the gospel of God in the midst of much conflict.

³For our appeal does not spring from error or impurity or any attempt to deceive,

⁴but just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak, not to please man, but to please God who tests our hearts.

⁵For we never came with words of flattery, as you know, nor with a pretext for greed — God is witness.

⁶Nor did we seek glory from people, whether from you or from others, though we could have made demands as apostles of Christ.

⁷But we were gentle among you, like a nursing mother taking care of her own children.

⁸So, being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you had become very dear to us.

⁹For you remember, brothers, our labor and toil: we worked night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you, while we proclaimed to you the gospel of God.

¹⁰You are witnesses, and God also, how holy and righteous and blameless was our conduct toward you believers.

¹¹For you know how, like a father with his children,

¹²we exhorted each one of you and encouraged you and charged you to walk in a manner worthy of God, who calls you into his own kingdom and glory.

¹³And we also thank God constantly for this, that when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers.

¹⁴For you, brothers, became imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus that are in Judea. For you suffered the same things from your own countrymen as they did from the Jews,

¹⁵who killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and drove us out, and displease God and oppose all mankind

¹⁶by hindering us from speaking to the Gentiles that they might be saved — so as always to fill up the measure of their sins. But wrath has come upon them at last!

¹⁷But since we were torn away from you, brothers, for a short time, in person not in heart, we endeavored the more eagerly and with great desire to see you face to face,

¹⁸because we wanted to come to you — I, Paul, again and again — but Satan hindered us.

¹⁹For what is our hope or joy or crown of boasting before our Lord Jesus at his coming? Is it not you?

²⁰For you are our glory and joy.

¹Therefore when we could bear it no longer, we were willing to be left behind at Athens alone,

²and we sent Timothy, our brother and God's coworker in the gospel of Christ, to establish and exhort you in your faith,

³that no one be moved by these afflictions. For you yourselves know that we are destined for this.

⁴For when we were with you, we kept telling you beforehand that we were to suffer affliction, just as it has come to pass, and just as you know.

⁵For this reason, when I could bear it no longer, I sent to learn about your faith, for fear that somehow the tempter had tempted you and our labor would be in vain.

⁶But now that Timothy has come to us from you, and has brought us the good news of your faith and love and reported that you always remember us kindly and long to see us, as we long to see you —

⁷for this reason, brothers, in all our distress and affliction we have been comforted about you through your faith.

⁸For now we live, if you are standing fast in the Lord.

⁹For what thanksgiving can we return to God for you, for all the joy that we feel for your sake before our God,

¹⁰as we pray most earnestly night and day that we may see you face to face and supply what is lacking in your faith?

¹¹Now may our God and Father himself, and our Lord Jesus, direct our way to you,

¹²and may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, as we do for you,

¹³so that he may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints.

¹Finally, then, brothers, we ask and urge you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God, just as you are doing, that you do so more and more.

²For you know what instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus.

³For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality;

⁴that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor,

⁵not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God;

⁶that no one transgress and wrong his brother in this matter, because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, as we told you beforehand and solemnly warned you.

⁷For God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness.

⁸Therefore whoever disregards this, disregards not man but God, who gives his Holy Spirit to you.

⁹Now concerning brotherly love you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another,

¹⁰for that indeed is what you are doing to all the brothers throughout Macedonia. But we urge you, brothers, to do this more and more,

¹¹and to aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you,

¹²so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one.

¹³But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope.

¹⁴For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep.

¹⁵For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep.

¹⁶For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first.

¹⁷Then we who are alive, who are left, 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.

¹⁸Therefore encourage one another with these words.