so that we ourselves make our boast of you among the churches of God, for your patience and fidelity under all your persecutions and afflictions which ye endure:

which is a manifest proof of the righteous judgment of God, that ye should be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which ye also suffer:

seeing it is a righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation to them that trouble you;

in a flame of fire, taking vengeance of them that know not God, and obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ:

when he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired by all those who believe; because our testimony was believed among you in that day.

Wherefore also we pray continually for you, that our God would count you worthy of the calling, and fulfil all the good pleasure of his goodness, and the work of faith with power:

that the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified by you, and you by him, according to the grace of our God and Lord, Jesus Christ.

that ye be not hastily agitated with apprehension, nor troubled, neither by spirit, nor by discourse, nor by letter, as coming from us, as though the day of the Lord was instantly approaching.

Let no man deceive you in any way: because that cannot be till the apostasy come first, and the man of sin appear, the son of perdition,

who opposeth himself against, and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or is the object of adoration; so that he in the temple of God sitteth as God, exhibiting himself in public that he is God.

Do ye not remember that when I was yet with you, I told you these things?

And now ye know what withholdeth, that he may be revealed in his own time.

For the mystery of iniquity is already powerfully working; only he that withholdeth hitherto, will do so till he is removed.

And then that lawless person will appear, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming;

and in every unrighteous delusion among those who perish: in consequence of which things they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.

And for this cause God shall send unto them the energy of delusion, that they should believe a lie:

that they all might be damned who have not believed the truth, but have taken pleasure in unrighteousness.

FINALLY, brethren, pray for us, that the word of the Lord may run, and be glorified, even as among you;

and that we may be delivered from unreasonable and wicked men: for there is not faith in all.

But we have confidence in the Lord towards you, that the things which we have enjoined you, ye both do, and will do.

neither did we eat bread with any man unpaid for, but with labour and toil worked night and day, that we might be burdensome to none of you:

not that we have not such power, but that we might be ourselves an example for you to imitate.

For when we were with you, this we enjoined you, that if a man would not work, neither should he eat.

For we hear that there are some among you who walk disorderly, doing no work, but being busy-bodies.

Now such we command, and conjure, by our Lord Jesus Christ, that with quietness they labour, and eat their own bread.

And if any man obey not our word by letter, mark that man, and maintain no society with him, that he may be ashamed.