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Evil Things Will Happen

¹ Brothers and sisters, we have something to say about the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and the time when we will meet together with him. ² Do not become easily upset in your thinking or afraid if you hear that the day of the Lord has already come. Someone may have said this in a prophecy or in a message or in a letter as if it came from us. ³ Do not let anyone fool you in any way. That day of the Lord will not come until the turning away^[a] from God happens and the Man of Evil,^[b] who is on his way to hell, appears. ⁴ He will be against and put himself above any so-called god or anything that people worship. And that Man of Evil will even go into God's Temple and sit there and say that he is God.

⁵ I told you when I was with you that all this would happen. Do you not remember? ⁶ And now you know what is stopping that Man of Evil so he will appear at the right time. ⁷ The secret power of evil is already working in the world, but there is one who is stopping that power. And he will continue to stop it until he is taken out of the way. ⁸ Then that Man of Evil will appear, and the Lord Jesus will kill him with the breath that comes from his mouth and will destroy him with the glory of his coming. ⁹ The Man of Evil will come by the power of Satan. He will have great power, and he will do many different false miracles, signs, and wonders. ¹⁰ He will use every kind of evil to trick those who are lost. They will die, because they refused to love the truth. (If they loved the truth, they would be saved.) ¹¹ For this reason God sends them something powerful that leads them away from the truth so they will believe a lie. ¹² So all those will be judged guilty who did not believe the truth, but enjoyed doing evil.

You Are Chosen for Salvation

¹³ Brothers and sisters, whom the Lord loves, God chose you from the beginning^[c] to be saved. So we must always thank God for you. You are saved by the Spirit that makes you holy and by your faith in the truth. ¹⁴ God used the Good News that we preached to call you to be saved so you can share in the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. ¹⁵ So, brothers and sisters, stand strong and continue to believe the teachings we gave you in our speaking and in our letter.^16-17 May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father encourage you and strengthen you in every good thing you do and say. God loved us, and through his grace he gave us a good hope and encouragement that continues forever.