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1 Finally, brothers, pray for us that the Lord's message may spread quickly, and be received with honour as it was among you; |
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2 and pray that we may be preserved from bigoted and evil people, for not everyone has faith. |
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3 You can rely on the Lord, who will give you strength and guard you from the evil One, |
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4 and we, in the Lord, have every confidence in you, that you are doing and will go on doing all that we tell you. |
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5 May the Lord turn your hearts towards the love of God and the perseverance of Christ. |
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6 In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, we urge you, brothers, to keep away from any of the brothers who lives an undisciplined life, not in accordance with the tradition you received from us. |
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7 You know how you should take us as your model: we were not undisciplined when we were with you, |
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8 nor did we ever accept food from anyone without paying for it; no, we worked with unsparing energy, night and day, so as not to be a burden on any of you. |
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9 This was not because we had no right to be, but in order to make ourselves a model for you to imitate. |
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10 We urged you when we were with you not to let anyone eat who refused to work. |
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11 Now we hear that there are some of you who are living lives without any discipline, doing no work themselves but interfering with other people's. |
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12 In the Lord Jesus Christ, we urge and call on people of this kind to go on quietly working and earning the food that they eat. |
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13 My brothers, never slacken in doing what is right. |
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14 If anyone refuses to obey what I have written in this letter, take note of him and have nothing to do with him, so that he will be ashamed of himself, |
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15 though you are not to treat him as an enemy, but to correct him as a brother. |
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16 May the Lord of peace himself give you peace at all times and in every way. The Lord be with you all. |
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17 This greeting is in my own hand-PAUL. It is the mark of genuineness in every letter; this is my own writing. |
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18 May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. |
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