2Th 1 | EE | STEP | This letter is from Paul, Silas and Timothy. We are writing to the people of the church in Thessalonica. You belong to God our Father, and to the Lord Jesus Christ.

2 Thessalonians 1

Paul says ‘Hello’

1 This letter is from Paul, Silas and Timothy.

We are writing to the people of the church in Thessalonica. You belong to God our Father, and to the Lord Jesus Christ.

2 We pray that God, the Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ will continue to help you. We pray that they will give you peace in your minds.

Paul thanks God because of the believers at Thessalonica

3 You are like brothers and sisters to us, and we ought to thank God because of you always. We should thank him, because you are learning to believe Christ more and more. And each of you is loving each of the other Christians more and more. 4 As a result, we speak about you to God’s other groups of believers. We are so happy to tell them about you. You are showing how God’s people should live. People often cause you bad trouble and pain because you are Christians. But you are continuing to believe Christ. You are continuing to be patient and brave.

5 All this shows us something clearly, about how God decides about people. God decides about people who die. He decides what should happen to those people. And he will always decide what is right for them. People are causing great trouble for you now because God is your king. So it is right that, as a result, you should live always with God and his people. And God will cause this to happen to you.

6 God will do what is right. So he will punish those people who are causing trouble for you. He will cause trouble for them. 7 God will also do what is right for you. You have troubles now. But God will cause you to rest and to be without trouble. You will rest, together with us, when the Lord Jesus will come down from heaven. He will come with his powerful angels. 8 He will come with a very hot fire. And he will punish those people who refuse to know God. He will punish those people who do not obey the good news about our Lord Jesus. 9 To punish them, he will go on destroying them always. He will shut them out from where the Lord is present. So, they will never see how very powerful, great and beautiful he is. 10 All this will happen on that special day when Jesus will come. On that day, Jesus’ own people will show what great things he has done for them. All those people who believe him will say great things about him. And you will be among them, because you believed our message. You believed what we told you.

Paul prays for the believers at Thessalonica

11 So we always pray for you. Our God has chosen you to be his own people. And you must continue to be the kind of people that he wants. So, we pray that he will be happy about you. We pray also that God will work powerfully in you. So then he will make it possible for you to do every good thing that you want to do. You want to do those good things because you believe Christ. 12 We pray this so that other people will say good things about our Lord Jesus because of you. They will see the great things that he has done for you. Also, Jesus will cause people to say good things about you. This will happen because our God and the Lord Jesus Christ are so very kind to you.