BWE - II Thessalonians

Chapter 1

1:1  Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy send greetings to the church people in the city of Thessalonica. This church belongs to God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

1:2  May God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ, in their kindness, give you much happiness and peace.

1:3  My brothers, we thank God for you always. It is the right thing to do. You trust him more and more. You all love each other more and more.

1:4  So we are proud of you. We tell the churches of God about you because you are standing strong and you keep on believing in God. Your troubles and hard times do not stop you.

1:5  This proves that God will judge right. And he will say that you are good enough for the kingdom of God because you suffer for it.

1:6  God will do what is right. He will give trouble to those who are troubling you.

1:7  And he will give rest to you who are having troubles, and to us also. He will give this rest when our Lord Jesus comes back from heaven. The Lord Jesus will come with his strong angels in flaming fire.

1:8  He will punish those who do not know God, and those who do not obey the good news of our Lord Jesus.

1:9  They will be destroyed for ever. That will be their punishment. They will be for ever separated from the Lord and from his great and wonderful power.

1:10  This will happen on the day he comes. On that day his people will show how great and wonderful he is. And all those who have believed in him will be surprised at how great he is. That means you also, because you believed what we told you.

1:11  That is why we always talk to God about you. We want our God to make you fit for the good work to which he called you. We ask him to finish his good work of faith which trusts in his power.

1:12  In that way you will make the name of our Lord Jesus Christ great. And he will make you great. This will be because of the kindness of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Chapter 2

2:1  My brothers, we want to talk to you about the time when our Lord Jesus Christ comes again and we are taken to meet him.

2:2  Do not let your minds be easily upset. Do not be troubled by a spirit, or a message, or a letter. Do not be troubled if you hear that the day of the Lord has already come. Some people will say it came from us.

2:3  Do not let anyone fool you in any way. Before the day of the Lord comes, many people will stop believing God. The Man of Evil will be seen. He is the evil one who will be destroyed for ever.

2:4  He will put himself against God. He will put himself above everything to do with God, and above everything that people worship. He will sit in God’s holy place and tell people that he is God.

2:5  You remember that I told you these things when I was still with you.

2:6  And you know what is holding that evil man back. He will not be seen until it is his time to be seen.

2:7  The plan to make people wrong has already begun to work. But someone is holding back that plan. He will stop the law-breaker for a time.

2:8  Then that evil man will be seen. The Lord Jesus will kill him with the breath from his mouth. The coming of the Lord Jesus will be so bright and wonderful that it will put the evil man to an end.

2:9  The coming of the evil man is the work of Satan. He will come in great power with signs that are not true, and wonderful things.

2:10  And by his bad tricks he will fool people who are lost. They will not love the true message which would have saved them.

2:11  That is why God lets them be fooled so that they will believe what is not true.

2:12  They will all be judged. I mean the people who have not believed in the true message but who wanted to do what is wrong.

2:13  My brothers, the Lord loves you. We should thank God for you always. Here is why. From the beginning God chose you to be saved. You were saved because the Spirit made you holy and because you believed the true message.

2:14  God called you to be saved by the good news we brought you. He did this so that you would have some of the honour which the Lord Jesus Christ has.

2:15  So my brothers, be strong. Hold on to the things we taught you by our words or by letter.

2:16  God has loved us and made us happy through his kindness. He gave us everlasting comfort and good hope.

2:17  May our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God our Father, comfort your hearts and make you strong to do and say everything that is good.

Chapter 3

3:1  My brothers, please talk to God about us. Ask God that the Lord’s message may reach many people quickly and that they may receive it gladly as you did.

3:2  Ask God that we may be saved from bad people who do wrong things. Not everyone believes in Christ.

3:3  But the Lord can be trusted. He will make you strong. He will keep you safe from all that is wrong.

3:4  The Lord makes us feel sure about you. We are sure that you are doing, and will do, what we tell you to do.

3:5  May the Lord lead you to love God and be patient like Christ.

3:6  Now, my brothers, we tell you to do this in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Have nothing to do with any lazy brother who is not living the way we taught you.

3:7  You yourselves know how you should be like us. We were not lazy when we were with you.

3:8  We did not eat anyone’s food without paying for it. But we worked very hard day and night because we did not want to trouble any one of you.

3:9  We have the right to be helped. But we wanted to show you what you should do in this matter.

3:10  Even when we were with you, we told you this, ‘If any man will not work, do not let him eat.’

3:11  We hear that some of you are lazy. You do not work, but you trouble other people.

3:12  We say to such lazy people, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, ‘Do your work quietly. Earn your own food.’

3:13  My brothers, do not get tired of doing what is good.

3:14  If any one will not obey what we say in this letter, look at that man and remember him. Have nothing to do with him, so that he will be ashamed.

3:15  Do not treat him like an enemy. Tell him, as you would tell a brother, what he should do.

3:16  The Lord gives peace. May he give his peace to you at all times in every way. May the Lord be with you all.

3:17  I, Paul, write these words of greeting with my own hand. This is the sign in all my letters that I wrote them.

3:18  The loving kindness of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.