The Wicked One

2 Thessalonians 2 Concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to be with him: I beg you, my friends, ²not to be so easily confused in your thinking or upset by the claim that the Day of the Lord has come. Perhaps it is thought that we said this while prophesying or preaching, or that we wrote it in a letter. ³Do not let anyone deceive you in any way. For the Day will not come until the final Rebellion takes place and the Wicked One appears, who is destined to hell. ⁴He will oppose every so-called god or object of worship and will put himself above them all. He will even go in and sit down in God's Temple and claim to be God.
⁵Don't you remember? I told you all this while I was with you. ⁶Yet there is something that keeps this from happening now, and you know what it is. At the proper time, then, the Wicked One will appear. ⁷The Mysterious Wickedness is already at work, but what is going to happen will not happen until the one who holds it back is taken out of the way. ⁸Then the Wicked One will be revealed, but when the Lord Jesus comes, he will kill him with the breath from his mouth and destroy him with his dazzling presence. ⁹The Wicked One will come with the power of Satan and perform all kinds of false miracles and wonders, ¹⁰and use every kind of wicked deceit on those who will perish. They will perish because they did not welcome and love the truth so as to be saved. ¹¹And so God sends the power of error to work in them so that they believe what is false. ¹²The result is that all who have not believed the truth, but have taken pleasure in sin, will be condemned.

You Are Chosen for Salvation

¹³We must thank God at all times for you, friends, you whom the Lord loves. For God chose you as the first to be saved by the Spirit's power to make you his holy people and by your faith in the truth. ¹⁴God called you to this through the Good News we preached to you; he called you to possess your share of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. ¹⁵So then, our friends, stand firm and hold on to those truths which we taught you, both in our preaching and in our letter.
¹⁶May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and in his grace gave us unfailing courage and a firm hope, ¹⁷encourage you and strengthen you to always do and say what is good.

Isaiah 27 On that day the LORD will use his powerful and deadly sword to punish Leviathan, that wriggling, twisting dragon, and to kill the monster that lives in the sea.
²On that day the LORD will say of his pleasant vineyard, ³"I watch over it and water it continually. I guard it night and day so that no one will harm it. ⁴I am no longer angry with the vineyard. If there were thorns and briers to fight against, I would burn them up completely. ⁵But if the enemies of my people want my protection, let them make peace with me. Yes, let them make peace with me."
⁶In the days to come the people of Israel, the descendants of Jacob, will take root like a tree, and they will blossom and bud. The earth will be covered with the fruit they produce.
⁷Israel has not been punished by the LORD as severely as its enemies nor lost as many people. ⁸The LORD punished his people by sending them into exile. He took them away with a cruel wind from the east. ⁹But Israel's sins will be forgiven only when the stones of pagan altars are ground up like chalk, and no more incense altars or symbols of the goddess Asherah are left.
¹⁰The fortified city lies in ruins. It is deserted like an empty wilderness. It has become a pasture for cattle, where they can rest and graze. ¹¹The branches of the trees are withered and broken, and women gather them for firewood. Because the people have understood nothing, God their Creator will not pity them or show them any mercy.
¹²On that day, from the Euphrates to the Egyptian border, the LORD will gather his people one by one, as threshing separates the wheat from the chaff.
¹³When that day comes, a trumpet will be blown to call back from Assyria and Egypt all the Israelites who are in exile there. They will come and worship the LORD in Jerusalem, on his sacred hill.

A Warning to the Northern Kingdom

Isaiah 28 The kingdom of Israel is doomed! Its glory is fading like the crowns of flowers on the heads of its drunken leaders. Their proud heads are well perfumed, but there they lie, dead drunk. ²The Lord has someone strong and powerful ready to attack them, someone who will come like a hailstorm, like a torrent of rain, like a rushing, overpowering flood, and will overwhelm the land. ³The pride of those drunken leaders will be trampled underfoot. ⁴The fading glory of those proud leaders will disappear like the first figs of the season, picked and eaten as soon as they are ripe.
⁵A day is coming when the LORD Almighty will be like a glorious crown of flowers for his people who survive. ⁶He will give a sense of justice to those who serve as judges, and courage to those who defend the city gates from attack.

Isaiah and the Drunken Prophets of Judah

⁷Even the prophets and the priests are so drunk that they stagger. They have drunk so much wine and liquor that they stumble in confusion. The prophets are too drunk to understand the visions that God sends, and the priests are too drunk to decide the cases that are brought to them. ⁸The tables where they sit are all covered with vomit, and not a clean spot is left.
⁹They complain about me. They say, "Who does that man think he's teaching? Who needs his message? It's only good for babies that have just stopped nursing! ¹⁰He is trying to teach us letter by letter, line by line, lesson by lesson."
¹¹If you won't listen to me, then God will use foreigners speaking some strange-sounding language to teach you a lesson. ¹²He offered rest and comfort to all of you, but you refused to listen to him. ¹³That is why the LORD is going to teach you letter by letter, line by line, lesson by lesson. Then you will stumble with every step you take. You will be wounded, trapped, and taken prisoner.

A Cornerstone for Zion

¹⁴Now you arrogant leaders who rule here in Jerusalem over this people, listen to what the LORD is saying. ¹⁵You boast that you have made a treaty with death and reached an agreement with the world of the dead. You are certain that disaster will spare you when it comes, because you depend on lies and deceit to keep you safe. ¹⁶This, now, is what the Sovereign LORD says: "I am placing in Zion a foundation that is firm and strong. In it I am putting a solid cornerstone on which are written the words, 'Faith that is firm is also patient.' ¹⁷Justice will be the measuring line for the foundation, and honesty will be its plumb line."
Hailstorms will sweep away all the lies you depend on, and floods will destroy your security. ¹⁸The treaty you have made with death will be abolished, and your agreement with the world of the dead will be canceled. When disaster sweeps down, you will be overcome. ¹⁹It will strike you again and again, morning after morning. You will have to bear it day and night. Each new message from God will bring new terror! ²⁰You will be like the person in the proverb, who tries to sleep in a bed too short to stretch out on, with a blanket too narrow to wrap himself in. ²¹The LORD will fight as he did at Mount Perazim and in the valley of Gibeon, in order to do what he intends to do--strange as his actions may seem. He will complete his work, his mysterious work.
²²Don't laugh at the warning I am giving you! If you do, it will be even harder for you to escape. I have heard the LORD Almighty's decision to destroy the whole country.

God's Wisdom

²³Listen to what I am saying; pay attention to what I am telling you. ²⁴Farmers don't constantly plow their fields and keep getting them ready for planting. ²⁵Once they have prepared the soil, they plant the seeds of herbs such as dill and cumin. They plant rows of wheat and barley, and at the edges of their fields they plant other grain. ²⁶They know how to do their work, because God has taught them. ²⁷They never use a heavy club to beat out dill seeds or cumin seeds; instead they use light sticks of the proper size. ²⁸They do not ruin the wheat by threshing it endlessly, and they know how to thresh it by driving a cart over it without bruising the grains. ²⁹All this wisdom comes from the LORD Almighty. The plans God makes are wise, and they always succeed.

A Prayer of Thanks for Victory

Psalm 118 Give thanks to the LORD, because he is good,
and his love is eternal.
²Let the people of Israel say,
"His love is eternal."
³Let the priests of God say,
"His love is eternal."
⁴Let all who worship him say,
"His love is eternal."

⁵In my distress I called to the LORD;
he answered me and set me free.
⁶The LORD is with me, I will not be afraid;
what can anyone do to me?
⁷It is the LORD who helps me,
and I will see my enemies defeated.
⁸It is better to trust in the LORD
than to depend on people.
⁹It is better to trust in the LORD
than to depend on human leaders.

¹⁰Many enemies were around me;
but I destroyed them by the power of the LORD!
¹¹They were around me on every side;
but I destroyed them by the power of the LORD!
¹²They swarmed around me like bees,
but they burned out as quickly as a brush fire;
by the power of the LORD I destroyed them.
¹³I was fiercely attacked and was being defeated,
but the LORD helped me.
¹⁴The LORD makes me powerful and strong;
he has saved me.

¹⁵Listen to the glad shouts of victory in the tents of God's people:
"The LORD's mighty power has done it!
¹⁶His power has brought us victory--
his mighty power in battle!"

¹⁷I will not die; instead, I will live
and proclaim what the LORD has done.
¹⁸He has punished me severely,
but he has not let me die.

¹⁹Open to me the gates of the Temple;
I will go in and give thanks to the LORD!

²⁰This is the gate of the LORD;
only the righteous can come in.

²¹I praise you, LORD, because you heard me,
because you have given me victory.

²²The stone which the builders rejected as worthless
turned out to be the most important of all.
²³This was done by the LORD;
what a wonderful sight it is!
²⁴This is the day of the LORD's victory;
let us be happy, let us celebrate!
²⁵Save us, LORD, save us!
Give us success, O LORD!

²⁶May God bless the one who comes in the name of the LORD!
From the Temple of the LORD we bless you.
²⁷The LORD is God; he has been good to us.
With branches in your hands, start the festival
and march around the altar.

²⁸You are my God, and I give you thanks;
I will proclaim your greatness.

²⁹Give thanks to the LORD, because he is good,
and his love is eternal.