Study Desk

For you recall, brothers and sisters, our labor and hardship: it was by working night and day so as not to be a burden to any of you, that we proclaimed to you the gospel of God.

You are witnesses, and so is God, of how devoutly and rightly and blamelessly we behaved toward you believers;

so that you would walk in a manner worthy of the God who calls you into His own kingdom and glory.

For this reason we also constantly thank God that when you received the word of God which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of mere men, but as what it really is, the word of God, which also is at work in you who believe.

For you, brothers and sisters, became imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus that are in Judea, for you also endured the same sufferings at the hands of your own countrymen, even as they did from the Jews,

who both killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and drove us out. They are not pleasing to God, but hostile to all people,

For what thanks can we give to God for you in return for all the joy with which we rejoice because of you before our God,

Now may our God and Father Himself, and our Lord Jesus, direct our way to you;

so 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.

Finally then, brothers and sisters, we request and urge you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received instruction from us as to how you ought to walk and please God (just as you actually do walk), that you excel even more.

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

not in lustful passion, like the Gentiles who do not know God;

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

Therefore, the one who rejects this is not rejecting man, but the God who gives His Holy Spirit to you.

Now as to the love of the brothers and sisters, you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves are taught by God to love one another;

For if we believe that Jesus died and rose from the dead, so also God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep through Jesus.

For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.

For God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ,

in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus.

Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be kept complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.