For as much brethren as we are kept from you for a season, as concerning the bodily presence but not in the heart, we enforced the more to see you personally with great desire, and therefore we would have come unto you, I Paul once and again: but Satan withstood us. For what is our hope or joy, or crown of rejoicing? are not ye it in the presence of our lord Iesus Christ at his coming? yes ye are our glory and joy.
The .iij. Chapter.
Wherefore since we could no longer forbear, it pleased us to remain at Athens alone, and sent Timotheus our brother and minister of God, and our labourfellow in the gospell of Christ, to stablish you, and to comfort you over your faith, that no man should be moved in these afflictions. For ye yourselves know that we are even appointed thereunto. For verily when I was with you, I told you before that we should suffer tribulation even as it came to pass, and as ye know. For this cause, when I could no longer forbear, I sent that I might have knowledge of your faith, lest haply the tempter had tempted you, and that our labour had been bestowed in vain.
Now lately when Timotheus came from you unto us and declared to us your faith, and your love, and how that ye have good remembrance of us always, desiring to see us, as we desire to see you. Therefore brethren had I consolation in you, in all our adversity, and necessity through your faith. For now are we alive if ye stand steadfast in the lord. For what thanks can we recompense to God again for you, over all the joy that we joy for your sakes before our God, while we night and day pray exceedingly, that we might see you presently, and might fulfil that which is lacking in your faith.
God himself our father, and our lord Iesus Christ guide our journey unto you: and the lord increase you, and make you flow over in love one toward another, and toward all men, even as we do toward you, to stablish your hearts that they might be without ought to be complained on, in sanctifying {holiness} before God our father, at the coming of our lord Iesus Christ, with all his saints.
The .iiij. Chapter.
Furthermore we beseech you brethren, and exhort you in the lord Iesus, that ye increase more and more, even as ye have received of us, how ye ought to walk and to please God. Ye remember what commandments we gave you in the name of our lord Iesu. For this is the will of God, which is your sanctifying, that ye should abstain from fornication, that every one of you should know how to keep his vessel in holiness and honour, and not in the lust of concupiscence, as do the heathen, which know not God, that no man go beyond, and defraud his brother in bargaining, because the lord is avenger of all such things: as we told you before time, and testified unto you. For God hath not called us unto uncleanness: but unto sanctifying. He therefore that despiseth, despiseth not man, but God, which hath sent his holy spirit among you.
But as touching brotherly love, ye need not that I write unto you. For ye are taught of God to love one another. Ye and that thing verily ye do unto all the brethren, which are thorowout all Macedonia. We beseech you brethren that ye increase, more and more, and that ye study to be quiet, and to meddle with your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you: that ye may behave yourselves honestly toward them that are without and that nothing be lacking unto you.
I would not brethren have you ignorant concerning them which are fallen asleep, that ye sorrow not as other do which have no hope. For if we believe that Iesus died, and rose again: even so them also which sleep by Iesus, will God bring again with him. And this say we unto you in the word of the lord, that we which live and are remaining in the coming of the lord, shall not come yer they, which sleep. For the lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, and the voice of the archangel, and trompe of God. And the dead in Christe shall arise first: then shall we which live and remain, be caught up with them also in the clouds to meet the lord in the air. And so shall we ever be with the lord. Wherefore comfort your selves one another with these words.
The .v. Chapter.