We urge you brothers: warn the idle, encourage the timid, help the weak, be patient with all. See that no one pays back wrong for wrong, but at all times make it your aim to do good to one another and to all people.

   As apostles of Christ we could have been a burden to you, but we were gentle among you, like a mother caring for her little children. We loved you so much that we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well, because you had become so dear to us.

   Surely you remember, brothers, our toil and hardship; we worked night and day in order not to be a burden to anyone while we preached the gospel of God to you. You are witnesses, and so is God, of how holy, righteous and blameless we were among you who believed. For you know that we dealt with each of you as a father deals with his own children, encouraging, comforting and urging you to live lives worthy of God, Who calls you into His kingdom and glory.

   And we also thank God continually because, when you received the Word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but as it actually is, the Word of God, which is at work in you who believe.

   For you, brothers, became imitators of God's churches in Judea, which are in Christ Jesus: you suffered from your own countrymen the same things those churches suffered from the Jews, who killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets and also drove us out. They displease God and are hostile to all men in their effort to keep us from speaking to the Gentiles so that they may be saved. In this way they always heap up their sins to the limit. The wrath of God has come upon them at last.

   There is no need to write you about love for your fellow believers. You yourselves have been taught by God how you should love one another. And you have behaved in this way toward all the brothers in all of Macedonia. So we beg you, brothers, to do even more. Make it your aim to live a quiet life, to mind your own business, and earn your own living, just as we told you before. In this way you will win the respect of those who are not believers, and will not have to depend on anyone for what you need.

Taken from I Thess. 2, 4, 5, The New International Version and Today's English Version.
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