The Old and New Testament readings today are really interesting to hold next to one another. On one hand, you have Jeremiah, preaching a pretty dismal message at the temple gates to people who have abandoned the very God they claim to go there to worship. Then you have the letter to the Thessalonians, whom Paul, Silas, and Timothy (their names at the beginning mean that it was from them, not to them) commend for doing the very opposite: laying down their idols to follow Christ. We can also see the difference in the rest of their lives: the Thessalonians were an example to other churches, while the Hebrew people to whom Jeremiah was speaking had become cruel oppressors of the defenseless. It's not hard to figure out which way we should be going.