¹Finally, brothers and sisters, pray that we spread the Lord’s word rapidly and that it will be honored the way it was among you. ²Also pray that we may be rescued from worthless and evil people, since not everyone shares our faith. ³But the Lord is faithful and will strengthen you and protect you against the evil one.

⁴The Lord gives us confidence that you are doing and will continue to do what we ordered you to do. ⁵May the Lord direct your lives as you show God’s love and Christ’s endurance.

⁶Brothers and sisters, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ we order you not to associate with any believer who doesn’t live a disciplined life and doesn’t follow the tradition you received from us. ⁷You know what you must do to imitate us. We lived a disciplined life among you. ⁸We didn’t eat anyone’s food without paying for it. Instead, we worked hard and struggled night and day in order not to be a burden to any of you. ⁹It’s not as though we didn’t have a right to receive support. Rather, we wanted to set an example for you to follow. ¹⁰While we were with you, we gave you the order: “Whoever doesn’t want to work shouldn’t be allowed to eat.”

¹¹We hear that some of you are not living disciplined lives. You’re not working, so you go around interfering in other people’s lives. ¹²We order and encourage such people by the Lord Jesus Christ to pay attention to their own work so they can support themselves. ¹³Brothers and sisters, we can’t allow ourselves to get tired of doing what is right.

¹⁴It may be that some people will not listen to what we say in this letter. Take note of them and don’t associate with them so that they will feel ashamed. ¹⁵Yet, don’t treat them like enemies, but instruct them like brothers and sisters.

Farewell

¹⁶May the Lord of peace give you his peace at all times and in every way. The Lord be with all of you.

¹⁷I, Paul, am writing this greeting with my own hand. In every letter that I send, this is proof that I wrote it.

¹⁸The good will^aof our Lord Jesus Christ be with all of you.

Read in Logos

Footnotes

a 3:18 Or “grace.”