2 Thessalonians 3

₁Friends, there are some last things that we want to ask you. Please pray for us so that more and more people will hear and know about the Good_News of the Lord Jesus very soon and that people will rejoice when they hear it, like you did. ₂Please also pray that God will save us from bad and evil people because not all people want to believe the Good_News of Christ. ₃But the Lord always does what He promises. He will make you strong and protect you against the devil. ₄We are sure that the Lord will help you to do everything that we told you to do. You are doing it already and we know that you will keep on doing it. ₅We pray that God will lead you to understand even more how much God loves all the people of the world, and that it is important to keep on believing and doing what God wants, as Christ continued doing what his Father wanted.

₆Friends, our Lord Jesus Christ told me to warn you: You must stay away from believers who are lazy and do not want to live like we told them to. ₇You know very well what you must do if you want to live like we do. We were not lazy when we stayed with you. ₈We did not beg for food. We paid for all our food. We worked very hard every day and night because we did not want to ask anyone to care for us.

₉We are apostles of the Lord, and we could have asked you to take care of us. But we did not do it because we wanted to show you that everyone must care for himself. We wanted you to do as we did. ₁₀When we were with you, we told you to remember this: If someone does not want to work, then he may not eat.

₁₁Someone told us that some of the believers with you are very lazy. They do not work but they always make trouble for other people. ₁₂The Lord Jesus Christ told me to command those believers to stop making it difficult for other people, and that they must care for themselves. ₁₃But, friends, do not stop doing good things.

₁₄If a person does not want to listen to what we say in this letter then you must tell everyone who he is. You must leave him alone so that he can be ashamed. ₁₅But do not talk to him as if he is your enemy. No, you must warn him like you warn the other believers.

₁₆I pray that the Lord of peace will always give you peace in many ways and that the Lord will be with all of you. ₁₇I, Paul, am writing this greeting with my own hand. I do this with every letter so that you can see how I write. ₁₈I pray that our Lord Jesus Christ will be gracious to all of you.