1 Thessalonians 2:1–20

¹To be sure, ​YOU​ yourselves know, brothers, how our visit to ​YOU​ has not been without results,²but how, after we had first suffered and been insolently treated (just as ​YOU​ know) in Phi‧lip′pi, we mustered up boldness by means of our God to speak to ​YOU​ the good news of God with a great deal of struggling.³For the exhortation we give does not arise from error or from uncleanness or with deceit,⁴but, just as we have been proved by God as fit to be entrusted with the good news, so we speak, as pleasing, not men, but God, who makes proof of our hearts.

⁵In fact, at no time have we turned up either with flattering speech, (just as ​YOU​ know) or with a false front for covetousness, God is witness!⁶Neither have we been seeking glory from men, no, either from ​YOU​ or from others, though we could be an expensive burden as apostles of Christ.⁷To the contrary, we became gentle in the midst of ​YOU, as when a nursing mother cherishes her own children.⁸So, having a tender affection for ​YOU, we were well pleased to impart to ​YOU, not only the good news of God, but also our own souls, because ​YOU​ became beloved to us.

⁹Certainly ​YOU​ bear in mind, brothers, our labor and toil. It was with working night and day, so as not to put an expensive burden upon any one of ​YOU, that we preached the good news of God to ​YOU.¹⁰YOU​ are witnesses, God is also, how loyal and righteous and unblamable we proved to be to ​YOU​ believers.¹¹In harmony with that ​YOU​ well know how, as a father does his children, we kept exhorting each one of ​YOU, and consoling and bearing witness to ​YOU,¹²to the end that ​YOU​ should go on walking worthily of God who is calling ​YOU​ to his kingdom and glory.

¹³Indeed, that is why we also thank God incessantly, because when ​YOU​ received God’s word, which ​YOU​ heard from us, ​YOU​ accepted it, not as the word of men, but, just as it truthfully is, as the word of God, which is also at work in ​YOU​ believers.¹⁴For ​YOU​ became imitators, brothers, of the congregations of God that are in Ju‧de′a in union with Christ Jesus, because ​YOU​ also began suffering at the hands of ​YOUR​ own countrymen the same things as they also [are suffering] at the hands of the Jews,¹⁵who killed even the Lord Jesus and the prophets and persecuted us. Furthermore, they are not pleasing God, but are against [the interests of] all men,¹⁶as they try to hinder us from speaking to people of the nations that these might be saved, with the result that they always fill up the measure of their sins. But his wrath has at length come upon them.

¹⁷As for ourselves, brothers, when we were bereaved of ​YOU​ for but a short time, in person, not in heart, we endeavored far more than is usual to see ​YOUR​ faces with great desire.¹⁸For this reason we wanted to come to ​YOU, yes, I Paul, both once and a second time, but Satan cut across our path.¹⁹For what is our hope or joy or crown of exultation—why, is it not in fact ​YOU?—before our Lord Jesus at his presence?²⁰YOU​ certainly are our glory and joy.