9When the wicked one appears, Satan will pretend to work all kinds of miracles, wonders, and signs. 10Lost people will be fooled by his evil deeds. They could be saved, but they will refuse to love the truth and accept it. 11So God will make sure that they are fooled into believing a lie. 12All of them will be punished, because they would rather do evil than believe the truth.    

Be Faithful

13My friends, the Lord loves you, and it is only natural for us to thank God for you. God chose you to be the first ones to be saved. His Spirit made you holy, and you put your faith in the truth. 14God used our preaching as his way of inviting you to share in the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. 15My friends, that's why you must remain faithful and follow closely what we taught you in person and by our letters. 16God our Father loves us. He is kind and has given us eternal comfort and a wonderful hope. We pray that our Lord Jesus Christ and God our Father 17will encourage you and help you always to do and say the right thing.   

2 Thessalonians 3

Pray for Us

1Finally, our friends, please pray for us. This will help the message about the Lord to spread quickly, and others will respect it, just as you do. 2Pray that we may be kept safe from worthless and evil people. After all, not everyone has faith. 3But the Lord can be trusted to make you strong and protect you from harm. 4He has made us sure that you are obeying what we taught you and that you will keep on obeying. 5I pray that the Lord will guide you to be as loving as God and as patient as Christ.    

Warnings against Laziness

6My dear friends, in the name of the Lord Jesus, I beg you not to have anything to do with any of your people who loaf around and refuse to obey the instructions we gave you. 7You surely know that you should follow our example. We didn't waste our time loafing, 8and we didn't accept food from anyone without paying for it. We didn't want to be a burden to any of you, so night and day we worked as hard as we could. 9We had the right not to work, but we wanted to set an example for you. 10We also gave you the rule that if you don't work, you don't eat. 11Now we learn that some of you just loaf around and won't do any work, except the work of a busybody. 12So, for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ, we ask and beg these people to settle down and start working for a living. 13Dear friends, you must never become tired of doing right.

14Be on your guard against any followers who refuse to obey what we have written in this letter. Put them to shame by not having anything to do with them. 15Don't consider them your enemies, but speak kindly to them as you would to any other follower.   

Final Prayer

16I pray that the Lord, who gives peace, will always bless you with peace. May the Lord be with all of you. 17I always sign my letters as I am now doing: PAUL. 18I pray that our Lord Jesus Christ will be kind to all of you.

1From Paul, Silas, and Timothy. To the church in Thessalonica, the people of God our Father and of the Lord Jesus Christ. 2I pray that God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ will be kind to you and will bless you with peace!  

When Christ Returns

3My dear friends, we always have good reason to thank God for you, because your faith in God and your love for each other keep growing all the time. 4That's why we brag about you to all of God's churches. We tell them how patient you are and how you keep on having faith, even though you are going through a lot of trouble and suffering.

5All of this shows that God judges fairly and that he is making you fit to share in his kingdom for which you are suffering. 6It is only right for God to punish everyone who is causing you trouble, 7but he will give you relief from your troubles. He will do the same for us, when the Lord Jesus comes from heaven with his powerful angels 8and with a flaming fire. Our Lord Jesus will punish anyone who doesn't know God and won't obey his message. 9Their punishment will be eternal destruction, and they will be kept far from the presence of our Lord and his glorious strength. 10This will happen on that day when the Lord returns to be praised and honored by all who have faith in him and belong to him. This includes you, because you believed what we said.

11God chose you, and we keep praying that God will make you worthy of being his people. We pray for God's power to help you do all the good things that you hope to do and that your faith makes you want to do. 12Then, because God and our Lord Jesus Christ are so kind, you will bring honor to the name of our Lord Jesus, and he will bring honor to you.    

2 Thessalonians 2

The Lord's Return

1When our Lord Jesus returns, we will be gathered up to meet him. So I ask you, my friends, 2not to be easily upset or disturbed by people who claim that the Lord has already come. They may say that they heard this directly from the Holy Spirit, or from someone else, or even that they read it in one of our letters. 3But don't be fooled! People will rebel against God. Then before the Lord returns, the wicked one who is doomed to be destroyed will appear. 4He will brag and oppose everything that is holy or sacred. He will even sit in God's temple and claim to be God. 5Don't you remember that I told you this while I was still with you? 6You already know what is holding this wicked one back until it is time for him to come. 7His mysterious power is already at work, but someone is holding him back. And the wicked one won't appear until that someone is out of the way. 8Then he will appear, but the Lord Jesus will kill him simply by breathing on him. He will be completely destroyed by the Lord's glorious return.

1I don't need to write you about the time or date when all this will happen. 2You surely know that the Lord's return will be as a thief coming at night. 3People will think they are safe and secure. But destruction will suddenly strike them like the pains of a woman about to give birth. And they won't escape. 4My dear friends, you don't live in darkness, and so that day won't surprise you like a thief. 5You belong to the light and live in the day. We don't live in the night or belong to the dark. 6Others may sleep, but we should stay awake and be alert. 7People sleep during the night, and some even get drunk. 8But we belong to the day. So we must stay sober and let our faith and love be like a suit of armor. Our firm hope that we will be saved is our helmet.

 9God doesn't intend to punish us, but wants us to be saved by our Lord Jesus Christ. 10Christ died for us, so that we could live with him, whether we are alive or dead when he comes. 11That's why you must encourage and help each other, just as you are already doing.    

Final Instructions and Greetings

12My friends, we ask you to be thoughtful of your leaders who work hard and tell you how to live for the Lord. 13Show them great respect and love because of their work. Try to get along with each other. 14My friends, we beg you to warn anyone who isn't living right. Encourage anyone who feels left out, help all who are weak, and be patient with everyone. 15Don't be hateful to people, just because they are hateful to you. Rather, be good to each other and to everyone else.

16Always be joyful 17and never stop praying. 18Whatever happens, keep thanking God because of Jesus Christ. This is what God wants you to do. 19Don't turn away God's Spirit 20or ignore prophecies. 21Put everything to the test. Accept what is good 22and don't have anything to do with evil.

23I pray that God, who gives peace, will make you completely holy. And may your spirit, soul, and body be kept healthy and faultless until our Lord Jesus Christ returns. 24The one who chose you can be trusted, and he will do this. 25Friends, please pray for us. 26Give the Lord's followers a warm greeting. 27In the name of the Lord I beg you to read this letter to all his followers. 28I pray that our Lord Jesus Christ will be kind to you!

A Life That Pleases God

1Finally, my dear friends, since you belong to the Lord Jesus, we beg and urge you to live as we taught you. Then you will please God. You are already living that way, but try even harder. 2Remember the instructions we gave you as followers of the Lord Jesus. 3God wants you to be holy, so don't be immoral in matters of sex. 4Respect and honor your wife. 5Don't be a slave of your desires or live like people who don't know God. 6You must not cheat any of the Lord's followers in matters of sex. Remember, we warned you that he punishes everyone who does such things. 7God didn't choose you to be filthy, but to be pure. 8So if you don't obey these rules, you are not really disobeying us. You are disobeying God, who gives you his Holy Spirit. 9We don't have to write you about the need to love each other. God has taught you to do this, 10and you already have shown your love for all of his people in Macedonia. But, my dear friends, we ask you to do even more. 11Try your best to live quietly, to mind your own business, and to work hard, just as we taught you to do. 12Then you will be respected by people who are not followers of the Lord, and you won't have to depend on anyone.   

The Lord's Coming

13My friends, we want you to understand how it will be for those followers who have already died. Then you won't grieve over them and be like people who don't have any hope. 14We believe that Jesus died and was raised to life. We also believe that when God brings Jesus back again, he will bring with him all who had faith in Jesus before they died. 15Our Lord Jesus told us that when he comes, we won't go up to meet him ahead of his followers who have already died.

16With a loud command and with the shout of the chief angel and a blast of God's trumpet, the Lord will return from heaven. Then those who had faith in Christ before they died will be raised to life. 17Next, all of us who are still alive will be taken up into the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the sky. From that time on we will all be with the Lord forever. 18Encourage each other with these words.

12We begged, encouraged, and urged each of you to live in a way that would honor God. He is the one who chose you to share in his own kingdom and glory. 13We always thank God that you believed the message we preached. It came from him, and it isn't something made up by humans. You accepted it as God's message, and now he is working in you. 14My friends, you did just like God's churches in Judea and like the other followers of Christ Jesus there. And so, you were mistreated by your own people, in the same way they were mistreated by their people.

15Those Jews killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and they even chased us away. God doesn't like what they do and neither does anyone else. 16They keep us from speaking his message to the Gentiles and from leading them to be saved. The Jews have always gone too far with their sins. Now God has finally become angry and will punish them.    

Paul Wants To Visit the Church Again

17My friends, we were kept from coming to you for a while, but we never stopped thinking about you. We were eager to see you and tried our best to visit you in person. 18We really wanted to come. I myself tried several times, but Satan always stopped us. 19After all, when the Lord Jesus appears, who else but you will give us hope and joy and be like a glorious crown for us? 20You alone are our glory and joy!  

1 Thessalonians 3

1Finally, we couldn't stand it any longer. We decided to stay in Athens by ourselves 2and send our friend Timothy to you. He works with us as God's servant and preaches the good news about Christ. We wanted him to make you strong in your faith and to encourage you. 3We didn't want any of you to be discouraged by all these troubles. You knew we would have to suffer, 4because when we were with you, we told you this would happen. And we did suffer, as you well know. 5At last, when I could not wait any longer, I sent Timothy to find out about your faith. I hoped that Satan had not tempted you and made all our work useless.

6Timothy has come back from his visit with you and has told us about your faith and love. He also said that you always have happy memories of us and that you want to see us as much as we want to see you. 7My friends, even though we have a lot of trouble and suffering, your faith makes us feel better about you. 8Your strong faith in the Lord is like a breath of new life. 9How can we possibly thank God enough for all the happiness you have brought us? 10Day and night we sincerely pray that we will see you again and help you to have an even stronger faith.

11We pray that God our Father and our Lord Jesus will let us visit you. 12May the Lord make your love for each other and for everyone else grow by leaps and bounds. That's how our love for you has grown. 13And when our Lord comes with all of his people, I pray that he will make your hearts pure and innocent in the sight of God the Father.