When the wicked one appears, Satan will pretend to work all kinds of miracles, wonders, and signs. Lost people will be fooled by his evil deeds. They could be saved, but they will refuse to love the truth and accept it. So God will make sure that they are fooled into believing a lie. All of them will be punished, because they would rather do evil than believe the truth.
Be Faithful
My friends, the Lord loves you, and it is only natural for us to thank God for you. God chose you to be the first ones to be saved. His Spirit made you holy, and you put your faith in the truth. God used our preaching as his way of inviting you to share in the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. My friends, that's why you must remain faithful and follow closely what we taught you in person and by our letters.
God our Father loves us. He is kind and has given us eternal comfort and a wonderful hope. We pray that our Lord Jesus Christ and God our Father will encourage you and help you always to do and say the right thing.
Pray for Us Finally, our friends, please pray for us. This will help the message about the Lord to spread quickly, and others will respect it, just as you do. Pray that we may be kept safe from worthless and evil people. After all, not everyone has faith. But the Lord can be trusted to make you strong and protect you from harm. He has made us sure that you are obeying what we taught you and that you will keep on obeying. I pray that the Lord will guide you to be as loving as God and as patient as Christ.
Warnings against Laziness
My dear friends, in the name of the Lord Jesus, I beg you not to have anything to do with any of your people who loaf around and refuse to obey the instructions we gave you. You surely know that you should follow our example. We didn't waste our time loafing, and we didn't accept food from anyone without paying for it. We didn't want to be a burden to any of you, so night and day we worked as hard as we could.
We had the right not to work, but we wanted to set an example for you. We also gave you the rule that if you don't work, you don't eat. Now we learn that some of you just loaf around and won't do any work, except the work of a busybody. So, for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ, we ask and beg these people to settle down and start working for a living. Dear friends, you must never become tired of doing right.
Be on your guard against any followers who refuse to obey what we have written in this letter. Put them to shame by not having anything to do with them. Don't consider them your enemies, but speak kindly to them as you would to any other follower.
Final Prayer
I pray that the Lord, who gives peace, will always bless you with peace. May the Lord be with all of you. I always sign my letters as I am now doing: PAUL. I pray that our Lord Jesus Christ will be kind to all of you.