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not to be shaken out of your minds suddenly, or to be alarmed either by a “spirit,”[a] or by an oral statement, or by a letter allegedly from us to the effect that the day of the Lord is at hand.(A) Let no one deceive you in any way. For unless the apostasy comes first and the lawless one is revealed,[b] the one doomed to perdition,

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Footnotes

  1. 2:2 “Spirit”: a Spirit-inspired utterance or ecstatic revelation. An oral statement: literally, a “word” or pronouncement, not necessarily of ecstatic origin. A letter allegedly sent by us: possibly a forged letter, so that Paul calls attention in 2 Thes 3:17 to his practice of concluding a genuine letter with a summary note or greeting in his own hand, as at Gal 6:11–18 and elsewhere.
  2. 2:3b–5 This incomplete sentence (anacoluthon, 2 Thes 2:4) recalls what the Thessalonians had already been taught, an apocalyptic scenario depicting, in terms borrowed especially from Dn 11:36–37 and related verses, human self-assertiveness against God in the temple of God itself. The lawless one represents the climax of such activity in this account.