003:004 For even when we were with you, we forewarned you, saying, "We are soon to suffer affliction;" and this actually happened, as you well know. 003:005 For this reason I also, when I could no longer endure the uncertainty, sent to know the condition of your faith, lest perchance the Tempter might have tempted you and our labour have been lost. 003:006 But now that Timothy has recently come back to us from you, and has brought us the happy tidings of your faith and love, and has told us how you still cherish a constant and affectionate recollection of us, and are longing to see us as we also long to see you-- 003:007 for this reason in our distress and trouble we have been comforted about you, brethren, by your faith. 003:008 For now life is for us life indeed, since you are standing fast in the Lord. 003:009 For what thanksgiving on your behalf can we possibly offer to God in return for all the joy which fills our souls before our God for you, 003:010 while night and day, with intense earnestness, we pray that we may see your faces, and may bring to perfection whatever may be still lacking in your faith? 003:011 But may our God and Father Himself--and our Lord Jesus-- guide us on our way to you; 003:012 and as for you, may the Lord teach you to love one another and all men, with a growing and a glowing love, resembling our love for you. 003:013 Thus He will build up your characters, so that you will be faultlessly holy in the presence of our God and Father at the Coming of our Lord Jesus with all His holy ones. 004:001 Moreover, brethren, as you learnt from our lips the lives which you ought to live, and do live, so as to please God, we beg and exhort you in the name of the Lord Jesus to live them more and more truly. 004:002 For you know the commands which we laid upon you by the authority of the Lord Jesus. 004:003 For this is God's will--your purity of life, that you abstain from fornication; 004:004 that each man among you shall know how to procure a wife who shall be his own in purity and honour; 004:005 that you be not overmastered by lustful cravings, like the Gentiles who have no knowledge of God; 004:006 and that in this matter there be no encroaching on the rights of a brother Christian and no overreaching him. For the Lord is an avenger in all such cases, as we have already taught you and solemnly warned you. 004:007 God has not called us to an unclean life, but to one of purity. 004:008 Therefore a defiant spirit in such a case provokes not man but God, who puts His Holy Spirit into your hearts.