2 Thessalonians
Chapter 1
Overview
Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy write to the community of believers in Thessalonica, where people are suffering because of their faith. The letter opens with encouragement: their trust in God and care for one another are growing even under pressure. The writers then place that suffering within a larger picture of justice. God sees both those who cause harm and those who endure it. The chapter looks ahead to Jesus’ return, when wrongs will be answered and relief will come, and it closes with a prayer that God will give their good intentions the strength to become action.
1From Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy, to the community of believers in Thessalonica who belong to God our Father and the Lord Jesus the Messiah.
2May God the Father and the Lord Jesus the Messiah give you grace and peace.
3Brothers and sisters, we must always thank God for you, and it is right for us to do so. Your trust in God is growing wonderfully, and every one of you is showing more and more love for the others.
4As a result, we ourselves proudly tell God’s other communities about you. We speak about your endurance and faith through all the persecution and suffering you are bearing.
5Your endurance is evidence that God judges justly. Through it, you are being shown worthy of God’s kingdom—the kingdom for which you are suffering.
6God is just: he will repay with suffering those who make you suffer.
7He will also give relief to you who are suffering, and to us as well. This will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his powerful angels,
8in blazing fire. He will bring justice upon those who refuse to know God and those who refuse to obey the good news about our Lord Jesus.
9They will pay the penalty of eternal ruin, separated from the Lord’s presence and from his glorious power.
10This will happen on the day when Jesus comes to be honored among his holy people and regarded with wonder by everyone who has believed. You will be among them, because you believed the message we gave you.
11With this in mind, we always pray for you. We ask our God to make you worthy of the life to which he called you. We also ask him, by his power, to fulfill every good desire you have and every work that grows from faith.
12Then the name of our Lord Jesus will be honored through you, and you will be honored through him, because of the grace of our God and Lord, Jesus the Messiah.