Brothers, at all times we are obligated to thank God for you. It is right to do this because your faith is growing all the time and the love every one of you has for each other is increasing.

This is evidence of God's righteous judgment and is intended to make you worthy of God's kingdom, for which you are suffering.

Certainly it is right for God to pay back those who afflict you with affliction,

in blazing fire. He will take revenge on those who do not know God and on those who refuse to obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.

With this in mind, we always pray for you, asking that our God might make you worthy of his calling and that through his power he might help you accomplish every good desire and faithful action.

Do not let anyone deceive you in any way, for it will not come unless the rebellion takes place first and the man of sin, who is destined for destruction, is revealed.

For the secret of this lawlessness is already at work, but only until the person now holding it back gets out of the way.

For this reason, God will send them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie.

At all times we are obligated to thank God for you, brothers who are loved by the Lord, because God chose you to be the first fruits for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and through faith in the truth.

Finally, brothers, pray for us that the word of the Lord may spread rapidly, and that it may be honored the way it is among you.

For you yourselves know what you must do to imitate us. We never lived in idleness among you.

We did not eat anyone's food without paying for it. Instead, with toil and labor we worked night and day in order not to be a burden to any of you.