Chapter 124

¹ Since, then, the words of the Lord are true, and “every man is a liar,” as it is written, let us see whether the apostle Paul also is in agreement with the words of the Lord.

² For writing to the Thessalonians and exhorting them always to be watchful and to persevere in prayers, and not yet to expect the day of judgment because the time had not yet been fulfilled, he spoke to them thus: “We beseech you, brethren, concerning the coming of the Lord, that you be not troubled, neither by word nor by letter as though from us, as that the day of the Lord is at hand. Let no one deceive you in any way; for that day will not come unless the apostasy comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition, the one who opposes and exalts himself above everything that is called God or an object of worship, so that he sits in the temple of God, displaying himself as being God. Do you not remember that, while I was still with you, I used to tell you these things? And now you know what restrains him, so that he may be revealed in his own time. For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only there is the one now restraining, until he comes out of the midst. And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will slay with the breath of his mouth and abolish by the appearing of his coming—he whose coming is according to the working of Satan.”

³ Who, then, is the one who restrains until now, except the fourth beast, upon whose removal and passing out of the midst the deceiver shall come?

⁴ But surely, being a busybody, you ask how many years remain for the beast, that it may be removed—not perceiving that, in seeking these things, you are seeking danger for yourself and are desiring to see the judgment sooner.

⁵ “For woe,” he says, “to those who desire the day of the Lord! And this is darkness and not light. As when a man flees from the face of a lion, and a bear meets him, and he leaps into his house and props his hands against the wall, and a serpent bites him. Is not the day of the Lord such—darkness and not light, and gloom having no brightness?”