Encouragement in Persecution

5  This is evidence of God’s righteous judgment, to make you worthy of the kingdom of God, for which in fact you are suffering. 6  For it is right for God to repay with affliction those who afflict you, 7  and to you who are being afflicted to give rest together with us when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels. 8  With flaming fire he will mete out punishment on those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. 9  They will undergo the penalty of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his strength, 10  when he comes to be glorified among his saints and admired on that day among all who have believed – and you did in fact believe our testimony. 11  And in this regard we pray for you always, that our God will make you worthy of his calling and fulfill by his power your every desire for goodness and every work of faith, 12  that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.

2  Now regarding the arrival of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered to be with him, we ask you, brothers and sisters, 2  not to be easily shaken from your composure or disturbed by any kind of spirit or message or letter allegedly from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord is already here. 3  Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day will not arrive until the rebellion comes and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction. 4  He opposes and exalts himself above every so-called god or object of worship, and as a result he takes his seat in God’s temple, displaying himself as God. 5  Surely you recall that I used to tell you these things while I was still with you. 6  And so you know what holds him back, so that he will be revealed in his own time. 7  For the hidden power of lawlessness is already at work. However, the one who holds him back will do so until he is taken out of the way, 8  and then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will destroy by the breath of his mouth and wipe out by the manifestation of his arrival. 9  The arrival of the lawless one will be by Satan’s working with all kinds of miracles and signs and false wonders, 10  and with every kind of evil deception directed against those who are perishing, because they found no place in their hearts for the truth so as to be saved. 11  Consequently God sends on them a deluding influence so that they will believe what is false. 12  And so all of them who have not believed the truth but have delighted in evil will be condemned.