1 Paul, Silvanus (Silas), and Timothy, to the church (assembly) of the Thessalonians in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed One):

² Grace (unmerited favor) be to you and [heart] peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed One).

³ We ought and indeed are obligated [as those in debt] to give thanks always to God for you, brethren, as is fitting, because your faith is growing exceedingly and the love of every one of you each toward the others is increasing and abounds.

⁴ And this is a cause of our mentioning you with pride among the churches (assemblies) of God for your steadfastness (your unflinching endurance and patience) and your firm faith in the midst of all the persecutions and crushing distresses and afflictions under which you are holding up.

⁵ This is positive proof of the just and right judgment of God to the end that you may be deemed deserving of His kingdom [a plain token of His fair verdict which designs that you should be made and counted worthy of the kingdom of God], for the sake of which you are also suffering.

⁶ [It is a fair decision] since it is a righteous thing with God to repay with distress and affliction those who distress and afflict you,

⁷ And to [^[a]recompense] you who are so distressed and afflicted [by granting you] relief and rest along with us [your fellow sufferers] when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with His mighty angels in a flame of fire,

⁸ To deal out retribution (chastisement and vengeance) upon those who do not know or perceive or become acquainted with God, and [upon those] who ignore and refuse to obey the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.

⁹ Such people will pay the penalty and suffer the punishment of everlasting ruin (destruction and perdition) and eternal exclusion and banishment from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power,

¹⁰ When He comes to be glorified in His saints [on that day He will be made more glorious in His consecrated people], and [He will] be marveled at and admired [in His glory reflected] in all who have believed [who have adhered to, trusted in, and relied on Him], because our witnessing among you was confidently accepted and believed [and confirmed in your lives].

¹¹ With this in view we constantly pray for you, that our God may deem and count you worthy of [your] calling and [His] every gracious purpose of goodness, and with power may complete in [your] every particular work of faith (faith which is that ^[b]leaning of the whole human personality on God in absolute trust and confidence in His power, wisdom, and goodness).

¹² Thus may the name of our Lord Jesus Christ be glorified and become more glorious through and in you, and may you [also be glorified] in Him according to the grace (favor and blessing) of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed One).

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64 Oh, that You would rend the heavens and that You would come down, that the mountains might quake and flow down at Your presence—

² As when fire kindles the brushwood and the fire causes the waters to boil—to make Your name known to Your adversaries, that the nations may tremble at Your presence!

³ When You did terrible things which we did not expect, You came down; the mountains quaked at Your presence.

⁴ For from of old no one has heard nor perceived by the ear, nor has the eye seen a God besides You, Who works and shows Himself active on behalf of him who [earnestly] waits for Him.

⁵ You meet and spare him who joyfully works righteousness (uprightness and justice), [earnestly] remembering You in Your ways. Behold, You were angry, for we sinned; we have long continued in our sins [prolonging Your anger]. And shall we be saved?

⁶ For we have all become like one who is unclean [ceremonially, like a leper], and all our righteousness (our best deeds of rightness and justice) is like filthy rags or a polluted garment; we all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away [far from God’s favor, hurrying us toward destruction].^(A)

⁷ And no one calls on Your name and awakens and bestirs himself to take and keep hold of You; for You have hidden Your face from us and have delivered us into the [consuming] power of our iniquities.^(B)

⁸ Yet, O Lord, You are our Father; we are the clay, and You our Potter, and we all are the work of Your hand.

⁹ Do not be exceedingly angry, O Lord, or [seriously] remember iniquity forever. Behold, consider, we beseech You, we are all Your people.

¹⁰ Your holy cities have become a wilderness; Zion has become a wilderness, Jerusalem a desolation.

¹¹ Our holy and our beautiful house, [the temple] where our fathers praised You, is burned with fire, and all our pleasant and desirable places are in ruins.

¹² Considering these [calamities], will You restrain Yourself, O Lord [and not come to our aid]? Will You keep silent and not command our deliverance but humble and afflict us exceedingly?

65 I was [ready to be] inquired of by those who asked not; I was [ready to be] found by those who sought Me not. I said, Here I am, here I am [says I Am] to a nation [Israel] that has not called on My name.^(C)

² I have spread out My hands all the day long to a rebellious people, who walk in a way that is not good, after their own thoughts—

³ A people who provoke Me to My face continually, sacrificing [to idols] in gardens and burning incense upon bricks [instead of at God’s prescribed altar];

⁴ Who sit among the graves [trying to talk with the dead] and lodge among the secret places [or caves where familiar spirits were thought to dwell]; who eat swine’s flesh, and the broth of abominable and loathsome things is in their vessels;

⁵ Who say, Keep to yourself; do not come near me, for I am set apart from you [and lest I sanctify you]! These are smoke in My nostrils, a fire that burns all the day.

⁶ Behold, it is written before Me: I will not keep silence but will repay; yes, I will repay into their bosom

⁷ Both your own iniquities and the iniquities of your fathers, says the Lord. Because they too burned incense upon the mountains and reviled and blasphemed Me upon the hills, therefore will I measure and stretch out their former doings into their own bosom.

⁸ Thus says the Lord: As the juice [of the grape] is found in the cluster, and one says, Do not destroy it, for there is a blessing in it, so will I do for My servants’ sake, that I may not destroy them all.

⁹ And I will bring forth an offspring from Jacob, and from Judah an inheritor of My mountains; My chosen and elect will inherit it, and My servants will dwell there.

¹⁰ And [the plain of] Sharon shall be a pasture and fold for flocks, and the Valley of Achor a place for herds to lie down, for My people who seek Me, inquire of Me, and require Me [by right of their necessity and by right of My invitation].

¹¹ But you who forsake the Lord, who forget and ignore My holy Mount [Zion], who prepare a table for Gad [the Babylonian god of fortune] and who furnish mixed drinks for Meni [the god of destiny]—

¹² I will destine you [says the Lord] for the sword, and you shall all bow down to the slaughter, because when I called, you did not answer; when I spoke, you did not listen or obey. But you did what was evil in My eyes, and you chose that in which I did not delight.

¹³ Therefore thus says the Lord God: Behold, My servants shall eat, but you shall be hungry; behold, My servants shall drink, but you shall be thirsty; behold, My servants shall rejoice, but you shall be put to shame.

¹⁴ Behold, My servants shall sing for joy of heart, but you shall cry out for pain and sorrow of heart and shall wail and howl for anguish, vexation, and breaking of spirit.

¹⁵ And you will leave your name to My chosen [to those who will use it] for a curse; and the Lord God will slay you, but He will call His servants by another name [as much greater than the former name as the name Israel was greater than the name Jacob].^(D)

¹⁶ So [it shall be] that he who invokes a blessing on himself in the land shall do so by saying, May the God of truth and fidelity [the Amen] bless me; and he who takes an oath in the land shall swear by the God of truth and faithfulness to His promises [the Amen], because the former troubles are forgotten and because they are hidden from My eyes.^(E)

¹⁷ For behold, I create ^[a]new heavens and a new earth. And the former things shall not be remembered or come into mind.^(F)

¹⁸ But be glad and rejoice forever in that which I create; for behold, I create Jerusalem to be a rejoicing and her people a joy.

¹⁹ And I will rejoice in Jerusalem and be glad in My people; and the sound of weeping will no more be heard in it, nor the cry of distress.

²⁰ There shall no more be in it an infant who lives but a few days, or an old man who dies prematurely; for the child shall die a hundred years old, and the sinner who dies when only a hundred years old shall be [thought only a child, cut off because he is] accursed.

²¹ They shall build houses and inhabit them, and they shall plant vineyards and eat the fruit of them.

²² They shall not build and another inhabit; they shall not plant and another eat [the fruit]. For as the days of a tree, so shall be the days of My people, and My chosen and elect shall long make use of and enjoy the work of their hands.

²³ They shall not labor in vain or bring forth [children] for sudden terror or calamity; for they shall be the descendants of the blessed of the Lord, and their offspring with them.

²⁴ And it shall be that before they call I will answer; and while they are yet speaking I will hear.^(G)

²⁵ The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the ox; and dust shall be the serpent’s food. They shall not hurt or destroy in all My holy Mount [Zion], says the Lord.

66 Thus says the Lord: Heaven is My throne, and the earth is My footstool. What kind of house would you build for Me? And what kind can be My resting-place?^(H)

² For all these things My hand has made, and so all these things have come into being [by and for Me], says the Lord. But this is the man to whom I will look and have regard: he who is humble and of a broken or wounded spirit, and who trembles at My word and reveres My commands.^(I)

³ [The acts of the hypocrite’s worship are as abominable to God as if they were offered to idols.] He who kills an ox [then] will be as guilty as if he slew and sacrificed a man; he who sacrifices a lamb or a kid, as if he broke a dog’s neck and sacrificed him; he who offers a cereal offering, as if he offered swine’s blood; he who burns incense [to God], as if he blessed an idol. [Such people] have chosen their own ways, and they delight in their abominations;

⁴ So I also will choose their delusions and mockings, their calamities and afflictions, and I will bring their fears upon them—because when I called, no one answered; when I spoke, they did not listen or obey. But they did what was evil in My sight and chose that in which I did not delight.

⁵ Hear the word of the Lord, you who tremble at His word: Your brethren who hate you, who cast you out for My name’s sake, have said, Let the Lord be glorified, that we may see your joy! But it is they who shall be put to shame.

⁶ [Hark!] An uproar from the city! A voice from the temple! The voice of the Lord, rendering recompense to His enemies!

⁷ Before [Zion] travailed, she gave birth; before her pain came upon her, she was delivered of a male child.

⁸ Who has heard of such a thing? Who has seen such things? Shall a land ^[b]be born in one day? Or shall a nation be brought forth in a moment? For as soon as Zion was in labor, she brought forth her children.

⁹ Shall I bring to the [moment of] birth and not cause to bring forth? says the Lord. Shall I Who causes to bring forth shut the womb? says your God.

¹⁰ Rejoice with Jerusalem and be glad for her, all you who love her; rejoice for joy with her, all you who mourn over her,

¹¹ That you may nurse and be satisfied from her consoling breasts, that you may drink deeply and be delighted with the abundance and brightness of her glory.

¹² For thus says the Lord: Behold, I will extend peace to her like a river, and the glory of the nations like an overflowing stream; then you will be nursed, you will be carried on her hip and trotted [lovingly bounced up and down] on her [God’s maternal] knees.

¹³ As one whom his mother comforts, so will I comfort you; you shall be comforted in Jerusalem.

¹⁴ When you see this, your heart shall rejoice; your bones shall flourish like green and tender grass. And the [powerful] hand of the Lord shall be revealed and known to be with His servants, but His indignation [shown] to be against His enemies.

¹⁵ For behold, the Lord will come in fire, and His chariots will be like the stormy wind, to render His anger with fierceness, and His rebuke with flames of fire.

¹⁶ For by fire and by His sword will the Lord execute judgment upon all flesh, and the slain of the Lord will be many.

¹⁷ Those who [attempt to] sanctify themselves and cleanse themselves to enter [and sacrifice to idols] in the gardens, following after ^[c]one in the midst, eating hog’s flesh and the abomination [creeping things] and the [mouse—their works and their thoughts] shall come to an end together, says the Lord.

¹⁸ For I know their works and their thoughts. And the time is coming when I will gather all nations and tongues, and they will come and see My glory.

¹⁹ And I will set up a [miraculous] sign among them, and from them I will send survivors to the nations—to Tarshish, Pul (Put), and Lud, who draw the bow, to Tubal and Javan, to the isles and coastlands afar off that have not heard of My fame nor seen My glory. And they will declare and proclaim My glory among the nations.

²⁰ And they shall bring all your brethren from all the nations as an offering to the Lord—upon horses and in chariots and in litters and upon mules and upon camels—to My holy mountain Jerusalem, says the Lord, just as the children of Israel bring their cereal offering in a clean vessel to the house of the Lord.

²¹ And I will also take some of them for priests and for Levites, says the Lord.

²² For as the new ^[d]heavens and the new earth which I make shall remain before Me, says the Lord, so shall your offspring and your name remain.

²³ And it shall be that from one New Moon to another New Moon and from one Sabbath to another Sabbath, all flesh shall come to worship before Me, says the Lord.

²⁴ And they shall go forth and gaze upon the dead bodies of the [rebellious] men who have stepped over against Me; for their worm shall not die, their fire shall not be quenched, and they shall be an abhorrence to all mankind.