⁴ Remain in me, and I in you. Just as a branch is unable to produce fruit by itself unless it remains on the vine, neither can you unless you remain in me.^(A)

God’s Children

²⁸ So now, little children, remain in him so that when he appears^(A) we may have confidence and not be ashamed before him at his coming.^(B)

²² And he subjected everything under his feet^[a](A) and appointed him^[b] as head^(B) over everything for the church,

²³ which is his body,^(A) the fullness^(B) of the one who fills all things^(C) in every way.

¹⁵ Don’t you know that your bodies are a part of Christ’s body?^(A) So should I take a part of Christ’s body and make it part of a prostitute? Absolutely not!

¹⁷ Therefore, dear friends, since you know this in advance, be on your guard,^(A) so that you are not led away by the error of lawless people and fall from your own stable position.

⁴⁸ But if that wicked servant says in his heart, ‘My master is delayed,’ ⁴⁹ and starts to beat his fellow servants, and eats and drinks with drunkards,^{(A) 50} that servant’s master will come on a day he does not expect him and at an hour he does not know. ⁵¹ He will cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the hypocrites, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

³ Don’t let anyone deceive you in any way. For that day will not come unless the apostasy^[a] comes first and the man of lawlessness^[b] is revealed, the man doomed to destruction.

⁴ He opposes and exalts himself above every so-called god^(A) or object of worship,^(B) so that he sits^[a] in God’s temple, proclaiming that he himself is God.

²⁵ They exchanged the truth of God for a lie,^(A) and worshiped and served what has been created instead of the Creator, who is praised forever.^(B) Amen.