New Testament Plan

¹Now, brothers and sisters, about times and dates we do not need to write to you,

²for you know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.

³While people are saying, “Peace and safety,” destruction will come on them suddenly, as labor pains on a pregnant woman, and they will not escape.

⁴But you, brothers and sisters, are not in darkness so that this day should surprise you like a thief.

⁵You are all children of the light and children of the day. We do not belong to the night or to the darkness.

⁶So then, let us not be like others, who are asleep, but let us be awake and sober.

⁷For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, get drunk at night.

⁸But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, putting on faith and love as a breastplate, and the hope of salvation as a helmet.

⁹For God did not appoint us to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.

¹⁰He died for us so that, whether we are awake or asleep, we may live together with him.

¹¹Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.

¹²Now we ask you, brothers and sisters, to acknowledge those who work hard among you, who care for you in the Lord and who admonish you.

¹³Hold them in the highest regard in love because of their work. Live in peace with each other.

¹⁴And we urge you, brothers and sisters, warn those who are idle and disruptive, encourage the disheartened, help the weak, be patient with everyone.

¹⁵Make sure that nobody pays back wrong for wrong, but always strive to do what is good for each other and for everyone else.

¹⁶Rejoice always,

¹⁷pray continually,

¹⁸give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.

¹⁹Do not quench the Spirit.

²⁰Do not treat prophecies with contempt

²¹but test them all; hold on to what is good,

²²reject every kind of evil.

²³May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

²⁴The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do it.

²⁵Brothers and sisters, pray for us.

²⁶Greet all God’s people with a holy kiss.

²⁷I charge you before the Lord to have this letter read to all the brothers and sisters.

²⁸The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.

¹Paul, Silas and Timothy, To the church of the Thessalonians in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ:

²Grace and peace to you from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

³We ought always to thank God for you, brothers and sisters, and rightly so, because your faith is growing more and more, and the love all of you have for one another is increasing.

⁴Therefore, among God’s churches we boast about your perseverance and faith in all the persecutions and trials you are enduring.

⁵All this is evidence that God’s judgment is right, and as a result you will be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are suffering.

⁶God is just: He will pay back trouble to those who trouble you

⁷and give relief to you who are troubled, and to us as well. This will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels.

⁸He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.

⁹They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might

¹⁰on the day he comes to be glorified in his holy people and to be marveled at among all those who have believed. This includes you, because you believed our testimony to you.

¹¹With this in mind, we constantly pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his calling, and that by his power he may bring to fruition your every desire for goodness and your every deed prompted by faith.

¹²We pray this so 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.

¹Concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered to him, we ask you, brothers and sisters,

²not to become easily unsettled or alarmed by the teaching allegedly from us—whether by a prophecy or by word of mouth or by letter—asserting that the day of the Lord has already come.

³Don’t let anyone deceive you in any way, for that day will not come until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the man doomed to destruction.

⁴He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshiped, so that he sets himself up in God’s temple, proclaiming himself to be God.

⁵Don’t you remember that when I was with you I used to tell you these things?

⁶And now you know what is holding him back, so that he may be revealed at the proper time.

⁷For the secret power of lawlessness is already at work; but the one who now holds it back will continue to do so till he is taken out of the way.

⁸And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will overthrow with the breath of his mouth and destroy by the splendor of his coming.

⁹The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with how Satan works. He will use all sorts of displays of power through signs and wonders that serve the lie,

¹⁰and all the ways that wickedness deceives those who are perishing. They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved.

¹¹For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie

¹²and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness.

¹³But we ought always to thank God for you, brothers and sisters loved by the Lord, because God chose you as firstfruits to be saved through the sanctifying work of the Spirit and through belief in the truth.

¹⁴He called you to this through our gospel, that you might share in the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.

¹⁵So then, brothers and sisters, stand firm and hold fast to the teachings we passed on to you, whether by word of mouth or by letter.

¹⁶May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and by his grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope,

¹⁷encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good deed and word.