III

So when we could no longer endure the anxiety, we chose to be left at Athens alone and sent Timothy, our brother and God's servant in the good news of Christ, to strengthen and encourage you in your faith, that no one might be disturbed in these trials. For you yourselves know that we are destined to this. For when we were with you we told you in advance, "We shall soon have trouble." And so it came to pass, as you know.

Therefore, when I could no longer endure the anxiety, I sent to know about your faith for fear that the tempter had tempted you and our labor had gone for nothing. But now that Timothy has come to us from you and has brought us good news of your faith and love, and that you always keep us well in mind and long to see us, just as we long to see you, we have been cheered, brethren, in regard to you, in all our straits and distresses by your faith. Now we are living, since you are standing firm in the Lord. For how can we be grateful enough to God for you in view of all the joy we have because of you, while we pray beyond measure night and day that we may see your faces and make good whatever lacks there may be in your faith?

May our God and Father himself and our Lord Jesus Christ open the way for us to come to you. The Lord make you to abound and overflow in love toward one another and toward all men, just as we do toward you, that your hearts may be made firm and you may be blameless in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his holy ones.

IV

To conclude, brethren, we beg of you and urge you in the Lord Jesus that, as you learned from us how you ought to live to please God, and are living, you will excel still more. For you know what directions we have given you through the Lord Jesus. For this is the will of God: to have you become holy and have you shun unchastity; to have each of you know how to take a wife for himself in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust, as the Gentiles do who know not God; to have no one

trespass or take advantage of his brother in this matter; for the Lord is the punisher of all such, as we have already told you and solemnly warned you. God has not called us to live in impurity, but in holiness. Therefore he who disregards this disregards not man, but God, who gives his Holy Spirit to you. Regarding brotherly love you have no need for me to write to you. For you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another, and you do the same to all the brethren in the whole of Macedonia. But we urge you, brethren, to excel still further and to be ambitious to lead a quiet life and to mind each his own business and to work with your hands, as we instructed you. Thus you will live becomingly in the sight of outsiders and will have need of nothing.

We do not wish you to be ignorant, brethren, regarding those who are sleeping, that you may not sorrow as the rest of men who have no hope. For since, as we believe, Jesus died and rose, so too God will through Jesus bring with him those who have fallen asleep. This we tell you by the word of the Lord: We, the living, who have been left until the coming of the Lord, will not have the start of those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel and with God's trumpet-call, and first the dead in Christ will rise. Then we, the living, who are left, will be caught up along with them into the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall forever be with the Lord. So encourage one another with these words.

V

BUT regarding times and dates, brethren, you do not need to have me write to you. For you yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. When they are saying, "Peace and safety," then sudden destruction is upon them, like the pangs upon a woman with child, and they will not escape. But you, brethren, are not in darkness so that the day can take you like a thief. You are all sons of light and sons of day. We do not belong to night or to darkness.

Then let us not be sleeping like the rest of men, but let us watch and be sober. For those who sleep sleep in the night and

those who drink drink in the night. But let us who are of the day be sober. Let us put on the breastplate of faith and love and for a helmet the hope of salvation. For God has not destined us to wrath, but to the winning of salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us that whether we are waking or sleeping we may live in company with him. Therefore encourage one another and build up one another, as indeed you are doing.

We beg you, brethren, to regard those who are laboring among you and who preside over you in the Lord and give you counsel, and to esteem them very highly in love on account of their work. Be at peace among yourselves. We urge you, brethren, to warn the disorderly, encourage the faint-hearted, help the weak, be patient with all. Take care that no one repays evil with evil, but always seek eagerly what is good in dealing with one another and with every one. Always be joyful. Pray without ceasing. In everything give thanks, for this is God's will in Christ for you. Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise prophecies. Test all things; hold fast the good. Avoid every kind of evil.

May the God of peace himself make you completely holy, and may your spirits and souls and bodies be kept faultless and blameless for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He is faithful who calls you and he will do it.

Brethren, pray for us.

Greet all the brethren with a holy kiss. I solemnly charge you in the Lord's name to have this letter read to all the brethren.

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.

PAUL'S SECOND LETTER TO THE

THESSALONIANS

I

PAUL and Silvanus and Timothy to the Church of the Thessalonians in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ:

Grace to you and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

We ought always to thank God for you, brethren, as is fitting, since your faith is growing greatly and the love of each and all of you toward one another is increasing, so that we ourselves glory in you among the churches of God because of your endurance and faith in all of your persecutions and in the distresses you are bearing. This is a proof of God's righteous judgment. It is to make you worthy of God's kingdom, on behalf of which you are suffering, since it is just on God's part to repay with trouble those who are troubling you, and to repay to you, who are being troubled, rest with us at the revelation of the Lord Jesus from heaven with his mighty angels. With flaming fire he will inflict vengeance on those who do not know God and do not obey the good news of our Lord Jesus. They will suffer the penalty of eternal destruction and be sent away from the face of the Lord and from his glorious power, when he comes to be glorified among his holy ones and to be wondered at on that day among all believers - for our testimony to you was believed.

To this end we are always praying for you that our God will make you worthy of the call, and will by his power bring to completion every one of your kind purposes and works of faith, that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, according to the grace of our God and of the Lord Jesus Christ.

II

WITH regard to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered to meet him, I beg you, brethren, not to be

quickly unsettled in mind nor excited by either a revelation or by a message or a letter supposed to be from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord is close at hand. Let no one lead you astray in any way, because it will not come until the Apostasy has first come and the Man of Lawlessness has been revealed the Son of Perdition, who opposes and exalts himself above everything called God and every object of worship, so that he enters the Temple of God and seats himself there, declaring that he himself is God.

Do you not remember that while I was still with you I used to tell you this? And now you know what is restraining him until he is revealed at his appointed time. For the mystery of lawlessness is already working, only there is just now one who is restraining it until he passes out of the way. And then the Lawless One will be revealed. But the Lord Jesus will sweep him away with the breath of his mouth and will make him powerless by the splendor of his coming. For his coming will be when Satan is active in every sort of power and in false signs and wonders and in every kind of wicked deception of those who are perishing, because they did not receive the love of the truth so that they might be saved. For this reason God sends to them a deceptive influence so that they believe a lie, that all who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness may be condemned.

We ought always to thank God for you, brethren, beloved by the Lord, because God chose you from the beginning for salvation through the Spirit's making you holy and your own faith in the truth. To this he called you through the good news that we brought, so that you may share the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Now then, brethren, stand firm and hold fast the teachings that you have been taught whether by our words or by our letter. May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and gave us eternal encouragement and good hope through grace, encourage your hearts and make you strong in every good word and work.