2 Thessalonians 1

{I,} Paul, {am writing this letter.} Silas and Timothy {are with me. We are sending this letter} to {you,} the group of believers in the city of Thessalonica, who belong to God our Father and to {our} Lord Jesus the Messiah.

{May} God our Father and our Lord Jesus the Messiah {continue to be} kind to you and {make you} peaceful. \*

Our fellow believers, we should thank God very frequently for you{, and we certainly do}! It is very appropriate that we should do this, because you are trusting in the Lord Jesus more and more, and because every one of you is loving each of the others more and more.

As a result, we keep proudly talking about you to the other groups of believers belonging to God. We tell them how you patiently endure {suffering} and how you continue trusting in the Lord Jesus, even though other people continually cause you to suffer.

{We can clearly see that God has made you able to stay faithful to Jesus while people make you suffer.} From that we know that God judges justly, because it means that he considers you to be worthy of being part of his people forever. That is what you are suffering for. \*

Since God judges justly, he will certainly also cause suffering for those people who are making you suffer.

He will also cause the people who are afflicting you to stop doing it. He will also do that for us. This will happen when our Lord Jesus shows himself to everyone as he returns from heaven with his powerful angels.

Then with blazing fire he will punish those people who have rejected God, those who refuse to accept the good news about our Lord Jesus. \*

These people will experience the direct result {of rejecting God}. They will be apart from the Lord {Jesus} forever, where they will never know how wonderfully powerful he is, and where they will be always dying.

{This will happen} when the Lord Jesus comes back from heaven at the time that God has decided. As a result, all we who are his people will praise him and marvel at him. {You will be there, too,} because you believed us when we told you the things about Jesus that we knew to be true. \*

We frequently ask God {to strengthen you spiritually so} that you might praise Jesus like this. We pray that the God whom we worship will make you worthy to be the new people that he has invited you to be. We pray that he will empower you to accomplish every good thing that you want to do because God has inspired you to do it.

We pray this because we want you to praise our Lord Jesus, and we want him to honor you. This will happen because the God whom we worship and our Lord Jesus the Messiah are exceedingly kind to you. \*