We always ought to be thanking God for you, brothers, as it is right to do so, because your faith is growing so much and the love of every one of you for one another is increasing

so that we are always boasting of you among the churches of God for your patient endurance and faith, in spite of your persecutions and crushing sorrows which you are enduring.

This is a proof of God's righteous judgment, His aim being to let you show yourselves worthy of His kingdom, for which you are suffering; since,

indeed, it is right for God to repay with crushing sorrows those who cause you these crushing sorrows,

in a flame of fire, who will take vengeance on those who do not know God, that is, those who will not listen to the good news of our Lord Jesus.

With this in view we are always praying for you too, that our God may make you worthy of His call, and by His power fully satisfy your every desire for goodness, and complete every activity of your faith,

the one who keeps up his opposition and so far exalts himself above every so-called god or object of worship, that he actually takes his seat in the sanctuary of God, proclaiming himself to be God.

For the secret power of lawlessness is already at work, but only until he who is holding it back has been gotten out of the way.

and with a completely wicked deception for men who are on the way to destruction, because they refused to love the truth so as to be saved.

We ought always to be thanking God for you, brothers dearly loved by the Lord, because God chose you from the beginning for salvation through the Spirit's consecration of you and through your faith in the truth,

Finally, brothers, pray for us, that the message of the Lord may continue to spread and prove its glorious power as it did among you,

and that we may be delivered from unprincipled and wicked men; for not all men have faith.

May the Lord guide you into a realization of God's love for you and into a patient endurance like Christ's.

You know yourselves how you ought to follow my example; for I was not a shirker when I was with you;

I did not eat any man's bread without paying for it, but with toil and hard labor I worked night and day, in order not to be a burden to any of you.

Not that I have no right to be supported, but to make myself an example for you to follow.

For when I was with you, I gave you this direction, "If a person refuses to work, he must not be allowed to eat."