Paul's Second Letter to the
THESSALONIANS
2 Thessalonians
1
From Paul, Silas, and Timothy--
To
the people of the church in Thessalonica, who belong to
God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ:
2May
God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ give you grace
and peace.
The Judgment at Christ's
Coming
3Our
friends, we must thank God at all times for you. It is
right for us to do so, because your faith is growing so
much and the love each of you has for the others is
becoming greater. 4That is why we ourselves
boast about you in the churches of God. We boast about
the way you continue to endure and believe through all
the persecutions and sufferings you are experiencing.
5All
of this proves that God's judgment is just and as a
result you will become worthy of his Kingdom, for which
you are suffering. 6God will do what is right:
he will bring suffering on those who make you suffer, 7and
he will give relief to you who suffer and to us as well.
He will do this when the Lord Jesus appears from heaven
with his mighty angels, 8with a flaming fire,
to punish those who reject God and who do not obey the
Good News about our Lord Jesus. 9They will
suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, separated
from the presence of the Lord and from his glorious
might, 10when he comes on that Day to receive
glory from all his people and honor from all who believe.
You too will be among them, because you have believed the
message that we told you. 11That is why we
always pray for you. We ask our God to make you worthy of
the life he has called you to live. May he fulfill by his
power all your desire for goodness and complete your work
of faith. 12In this way the name of our Lord
Jesus will receive glory from you, and you from him, by
the grace of our God and of the Lord Jesus Christ.
A Hymn of Praise
Isaiah 25 LORD,
you are my God;
I
will honor you and praise your name.
You
have done amazing things;
you
have faithfully carried out
the
plans you made long ago.
2You
have turned cities into ruins
and
destroyed their fortifications.
The
palaces which our enemies built
are
gone forever.
3The
people of powerful nations will praise you;
you
will be feared in the cities of cruel nations.
4The
poor and the helpless have fled to you
and
have been safe in times of trouble.
You
give them shelter from storms
and
shade from the burning heat.
Cruel
enemies attack like a winter storm,
5 like
drought in a dry land.
But
you, LORD, have silenced our
enemies;
you
silence the shouts of cruel people,
as
a cloud cools a hot day.
God Prepares a Banquet
6Here
on Mount Zion the LORD Almighty
will prepare a banquet for all the nations of the
world--a banquet of the richest food and the finest wine.
7Here he will suddenly remove the cloud of
sorrow that has been hanging over all the nations. 8The
Sovereign LORD will destroy death
forever! He will wipe away the tears from everyone's eyes
and take away the disgrace his people have suffered
throughout the world. The LORD
himself has spoken.
9When
it happens, everyone will say, "He is our God! We
have put our trust in him, and he has rescued us. He is
the LORD! We have put our trust in
him, and now we are happy and joyful because he has
saved us."
God Will Punish Moab
10The
LORD will protect Mount Zion, but
the people of Moab will be trampled down the way straw is
trampled in manure. 11They will reach out
their hands as if they were trying to swim, but God will
humiliate them, and their hands will sink helplessly. 12He
will destroy the fortresses of Moab with their high walls
and bring them tumbling down into the dust.
God Will Give His People
Victory
Isaiah 26 A day is coming
when the people will sing this song in the land of Judah:
Our
city is strong!
God
himself defends its walls!
2Open
the city gates
and
let the faithful nation enter,
the
nation whose people do what is right.
3You,
LORD, give perfect peace
to
those who keep their purpose firm
and
put their trust in you.
4Trust
in the LORD forever;
he
will always protect us.
5He
has humbled those who were proud;
he
destroyed the strong city they lived in,
and
sent its walls crashing into the dust.
6Those
who were oppressed walk over it now
and
trample it under their feet.
7LORD, you make the path smooth for good
people;
the
road they travel is level.
8We
follow your will and put our hope in you;
you
are all that we desire.
9At
night I long for you with all my heart;
when
you judge the earth and its people,
they
will all learn what justice is.
10Even
though you are kind to the wicked,
they
never learn to do what is right.
Even
here in a land of righteous people
they
still do wrong;
they
refuse to recognize your greatness.
11Your
enemies do not know that you will punish them.
LORD, put them to shame and let them
suffer;
let
them suffer the punishment you have prepared.
Show
them how much you love your people.
12You
will give us prosperity, LORD;
everything
that we achieve
is
the result of what you do.
13LORD our God, we have been ruled by
others,
but
you alone are our LORD.
14Now
they are dead and will not live again;
their
ghosts will not rise,
for
you have punished them and destroyed them.
No
one remembers them any more.
15LORD, you have made our nation grow,
enlarging
its territory on every side;
and
this has brought you honor.
16You
punished your people, LORD,
and
in anguish they prayed to you.
17You,
LORD, have made us cry out,
as
a woman in labor cries out in pain.
18We
were in pain and agony,
but
we gave birth to nothing.
We
have won no victory for our land;
we
have accomplished nothing.
19Those
of our people who have died will live again!
Their
bodies will come back to life.
All
those sleeping in their graves
will
wake up and sing for joy.
As
the sparkling dew refreshes the earth,
so
the LORD will revive those who have
long been dead.
Judgment
and Restoration
20Go
into your houses, my people, and shut the door behind
you. Hide yourselves for a little while until God's anger
is over. 21The LORD is
coming from his heavenly dwelling place to punish the
people of the earth for their sins. The murders that were
secretly committed on the earth will be revealed, and the
ground will no longer hide those who have been killed.
In Praise of the LORD
Psalm 117 Praise the LORD, all nations!
Praise
him, all peoples!
2His
love for us is strong,
and
his faithfulness is eternal.
Praise
the LORD!
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