2 Thessalonians — The Tyndale New Testament (1534)
The epistle known today as 2 Thessalonians in Tyndale's revised New Testament of 1534, translated from the Greek and opened, as in the print, by Tyndale's prologue to the epistle. It is printed here from the copy in the British Library as keyed by the Text Creation Partnership, in the spelling of 1534; the margin notes are given as footnotes, and the crosses ✚ and ⊢ mark where the lessons read in church begin and end.
¶ The Prologe to the seconde epistle of S. Paul to the Tessalonyans.
BEcause in the forepistle he had sayde that the last daye shuld come sodenly / the Thessalonians thought that it shuld haue come shortlye. Wherfore in this epistle he declareth him selfe.
And in the fyrst Chapter he cōforteth them with the euerlastinge rewarde of their fayth & pacyence in sofferinge for the gospell / & with the punyshement of their persecutours in euerlastinge payne.
In the seconde he sheweth that the last daye shuld not come / tyll there were fyrst a departinge (as some men thynke) from vnder the obedyence of the Emperour of Rome / and that Antichrist shuld set vp him selfe in the same place / as God: and deceaue the vnthankfull worlde with false doctrine / and with false & syenge myracles wrought by the workinge of Satan / vntill Christ shuld come & ⟨illegible⟩lee him with his glorious commynge and spirituall preachinge of the worde of God.
In the thyrde he geueth them exhortacion & warneth thē to rebuke the ydle that wolde not laboure with their handes / and auoyde their cōpanie / yf they wolde not mende.
The text
Chapter 1
¶ The fyrst Chapter.
1 PAul / Syluanus and Timotheus. Vnto the congregacion of [A] the Tessalonyans which are in God oure father / and in the Lorde Iesus Christ.
2 Grace be with you and peace from God oure father / & from the Lorde Iesus Christ.
3 We are bounde to thanke God all wayes for you brethren / as it is mete / because that youre fayth groweth excedyngly / and every [B] one of you swymmeth in love towarde another betwene youre selves /
4 so y[ᵗ] we oureselves reioyce of you in the congregacions of God over youre pacience and fayth in all youre persecucions & tribulaciōs that ye suffre /
5 which is a token1 of y[ᵉ] ryghtewes iudgemēt of god that ye are counted worthy of the kyngdom of god / for which ye also suffre.
6 It is verely a rightewes thinge with God to recōpence tribulacion to them that trouble you:
7 and to you [C] which are troubled / rest with vs / when the lorde Iesus shall shewe him silfe from heven with his myghty angels /
8 in flammynge fyre / rendrynge vengeaunce vnto them that knowe not God / and to them that obeye not vnto the gospell of oure Lorde Iesus Christ /
9 which shalbe punysshed with everlastynge damnacion / from the presence of the lorde / and from the glory of his power /
10 when he shall come to be glorified in his saincte / & to be made marvelous in all them that beleve: because oure testimonye that we had vnto you / was beleved [D] evē the same daye that we preached it.
11 Wherfore we praye allwayes for you that oure god make you worthy of the callynge / and fulfill all delectacion of goodnes and the worke of fayth / with power:
12 that the name of oure lorde Iesus Christ maye be gloryfied in you / and ye in him / thorowe the grace of oure God / and of the lorde Iesus Christ.
Notes to Chapter 1
Chapter 2
The .ii. Chapter.
1 VVe beseche you brethren by the commynge of oure lorde Iesu Christ / & [A] in that we shall assemble vnto him /
2 that ye be not sodēly moved from youre mynde / and be not troubled / nether by sprete / nether by wordes / nor yet by letter which shuld seme to come from vs / as though the daye of Christ were at honde.
3 Let no mā deceave you by eny meanes / for the lorde commeth not / excepte2 ther come a departynge fyrst / and that that synfull man be opened / y[ᵉ] sonne of perdicion
4 which is an adversarie / & is exalted above3 all that is called god / or that is worshipped: so that he shall sitt as God in temple of [B] god / and shew him silfe as god.
5 Remember ye not / that when I was yet with you / I tolde you these thynges?
6 And nowe ye knowe what with holdeth: even that he myght be vttered at his tyme.
7 For the mistery of that iniquitie doeth he all readie worke which onlie loketh / vntill it be taken out of yᵉ waye.
8 And then shall that wicked be vttered / whom the lorde shall consume with the sprete4 of hys mouth / and shall destroye with the apearaunce of his commynge /
9 ✚ even him whose commynge is by the workynge of Satan / wyth [C] all5 lyinge power / signes and wonders:
10 and in all deceavablenes of vnrightewesnes / amonge them that perysshe: because they receaved not the (love) of the truth / that they myght have bene saved.
11 And therfore6 god shall sende them stronge delusion / that they shuld beleve lyes:
12 that all they myght be damned which beleved not the trueth but had pleasure in vnrightewesnes.
13 But we are bounde to geve thankes alwaye to god for you brethren beloved of the lorde for because that God hath from the begynnynge chosen you to saluacion / thorow sanctifyinge of the sprete / and thorowe belevynge the trueth:
14 whervnto he called you byoure gospell / to obtayne yᵉ glorye that cōmeth of oure lorde Iesu Christ.
15 ✚ Therfore brethren stonde fast and kepe y[ᵉ] [D] ordinaunces which ye have learned: whether it were by oure preachynge / or by pistle.
16 Oure lorde Iesu Christ hym silfe / and God oure father which hath loved vs and hath geven vs everlastynge consolacion and good hope thorowe grace /
17 comforte youre hertes / & stablysshe you in all doctrine & good doynge.
Notes to Chapter 2
Chapter 3
The .iii. Chapter.
1 Furthermore brethren praye for vs / yᵗ the worde of god maye have fre passage and be gloryfied / as it is with you:
2 [A] and that we maye be delivered from vnresonable and evyll men. For all men have not fayth:
3 but the lorde is sayth full / which shall stablysshe you / and kepe you from evyll.
4 Wehave confidence thorow the lorde to you warde / that ye both do / and will do / that which we cōmaūde you.
5 And yᵉ lorde gyde youre herte vnto yᵉ love of God & paciēce of Christ.
6 ✚ [B] We requyre you brethren in the name of oure lorde Iesu Christ / y[ᵗ] ye with drawe youre selves from every brother that walketh in ordinatly / and not after the instituciō which ye receaved of vs.
7 Ye youre selves knowe how ye ought to folowe vs. For we behaved not oure selves inordinatly amonge you.
8 Nether toke we breed of eny mā for nought: but wrought with laboure and travayle nyght & daye / because we wolde not be grevous to eny of you:
9 not but that we had auctoritie: but to make oure selves an insample vnto you / to folowe vs.
10 For when we were with you / this we warned you of / yᵗ yf ther were eny which wolde not worke / that yᵉ same shuld not eate.
11 We have hearde saye no doute that ther are some which walke amonge you inordinatly [C] & worke not at all / but are besy bodies.
12 Them that are soche / we commaunde and exhorte by oure lorde Iesu Christ / that they worke with quyetnes / and eate their awne breed.
13 Brethren be not wery in well doynge.
14 Yf eny man obey not oure sayinges / sende vs worde of7 him by a letter: & have no cōpanie with him [D] that he maye be ashamed.
15 And count him not as an enemy: but warne him as a brother.
16 The very lorde of peace geve you peace all wayes / by all meanes. The lorde be with you all.
17 The salutacion of me Paul with myne awne honde. This is the token in all pistles. So I write.
18 The grace of oure lorde Iesus Christ be with you all Amen.
Sent from Athens.
Notes to Chapter 3
Colophon
Transcribed from The newe Testament dylygently corrected and compared with the Greke by Willyam Tindale (Antwerp: Marten Emperowr, November 1534; STC 2826), British Library copy, as keyed by the Text Creation Partnership (EEBO-TCP Phase I, text A68940): keyed by Apex CoVantage from the ProQuest page images in 2005, then sampled and proofread by Judith Siefring. The TCP transcription was released into the public domain under CC0 1.0. The printed text is in the public domain.
Spelling, capitals, punctuation (including the virgule /), abbreviation marks (the macron, as in thē, and ꝭ) and the signs ¶ ✚ ⊢ ❧ are kept as printed. The only changes are these: long s (ſ) is set as s; superscript letters are set as ᵉ ᵗ ᵒ (yᵉ = the, yᵗ = that); ▪ marks a stop the transcribers could not identify; a word divided at the end of a line, with or without a printed hyphen, is joined into one word; a letter supplied from another text, as explained below, is set in square brackets; page breaks and catchwords are removed. Woodcuts and decorated initials are not reproduced, but woodcut captions are given. The margin notes are given as numbered footnotes. Printed headings are kept, including their misprints, as italic lines under the library's chapter headings. The letters [A] to [G] are the section letters printed in the margin, by which the 1534 margin references (for example "Esaie vij. c.") and the table of lessons find a passage.
The 1534 print has no verse numbers. They are supplied here from the eBible.org Tyndale New Testament (1534), a public-domain, verse-numbered electronic text of the same edition. A word-by-word alignment showed that about 97 per cent of the two texts' words are identical across the New Testament, and the remainder differ in spelling and abbreviation, with a few slips of keying in one text or the other. The paragraphs of the print give way to one paragraph per verse.
Words that the transcribers could not read are marked ⟨illegible⟩ (1 place on this page, none in the margin notes).
In the verse text of this book, 5 places that the transcribers could not read in the printed book have been supplied from the eBible.org Tyndale New Testament (1534), a later electronic transcription of Tyndale's New Testament whose transcriber is not named. Each supplied letter is set in square brackets, as in y[ᵉ] or fal[c]e, so that it can be told from a letter the transcribers read in the print. A place was supplied only where the verse alignment was exact on both sides, the eBible reading agreed letter for letter with every legible letter, and no macron could have stood in the gap. Where the small superscript letter after y was supplied, the eBible text is the only evidence for that letter.
This is an archival transcription of Tyndale's printed English, not a Good Works Translation: nothing here has been translated or modernised by the library.
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