Think Wink.

Here is my attempt, and I do emphasize attempt, at translating Paul’s eschatological passage in 2 Thessalonians 2:1-12. Let me tell you, I now believe more in the inspiration of the Holy Spirit because Paul must have lost his mind writing that! LOL. Any ways, it was tough but really pushed me in my translation abilities. I hope it helps. As always, for help on the Greek words click here for the Greek of the passage and a side-by-side comparison of the NET. Enjoy.

Greek Text
1 ἐρωτῶμεν δὲ ὑμᾶς ἀδελφοί ὑπὲρ τῆς παρουσίας τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ καὶ ἡμῶν ἐπισυναγωγῆς ἐπ’ αὐτόν 2 εἰς τὸ μὴ ταχέως σαλευθῆναι ὑμᾶς ἀπὸ τοῦ νοὸς μηδὲ θροεῖσθαι μήτε διὰ πνεύματος μήτε διὰ λόγου μήτε δι’ ἐπιστολῆς ὡς δι’ ἡμῶν ὡς ὅτι ἐνέστηκεν ἡ ἡμέρα τοῦ κυρίου 3 μή τις ὑμᾶς ἐξαπατήσῃ κατὰ μηδένα τρόπον ὅτι ἐὰν μὴ ἔλθῃ ἡ ἀποστασία πρῶτον καὶ ἀποκαλυφθῇ ὁ ἄνθρωπος τῆς ἀνομίας ὁ υἱὸς τῆς ἀπωλείας 4 ὁ ἀντικείμενος καὶ ὑπεραιρόμενος ἐπὶ πάντα λεγόμενον θεὸν ἢ σέβασμα ὥστε αὐτὸν εἰς τὸν ναὸν τοῦ θεοῦ καθίσαι ἀποδεικνύντα ἑαυτὸν ὅτι ἔστιν θεός 5 οὐ μνημονεύετε ὅτι ἔτι ὢν πρὸς ὑμᾶς ταῦτα ἔλεγον ὑμῖν 6 καὶ νῦν τὸ κατέχον οἴδατε εἰς τὸ ἀποκαλυφθῆναι αὐτὸν ἐν τῷ ἑαυτοῦ καιρῷ 7 τὸ γὰρ μυστήριον ἤδη ἐνεργεῖται τῆς ἀνομίας μόνον ὁ κατέχων ἄρτι ἕως ἐκ μέσου γένηται 8 καὶ τότε ἀποκαλυφθήσεται ὁ ἄνομος ὃν ὁ κύριος Ἰησοῦς ἀνελεῖ τῷ πνεύματι τοῦ στόματος αὐτοῦ καὶ καταργήσει τῇ ἐπιφανείᾳ τῆς παρουσίας αὐτοῦ 9 οὗ ἐστιν ἡ παρουσία κατ’ ἐνέργειαν τοῦ Σατανᾶ ἐν πάσῃ δυνάμει καὶ σημείοις καὶ τέρασιν ψεύδους 10 καὶ ἐν πάσῃ ἀπάτῃ ἀδικίας τοῖς ἀπολλυμένοις ἀνθ’ ὧν τὴν ἀγάπην τῆς ἀληθείας οὐκ ἐδέξαντο εἰς τὸ σωθῆναι αὐτούς 11 καὶ διὰ τοῦτο πέμπει αὐτοῖς ὁ θεὸς ἐνέργειαν πλάνης εἰς τὸ πιστεῦσαι αὐτοὺς τῷ ψεύδει 12 ἵνα κριθῶσιν πάντες οἱ μὴ πιστεύσαντες τῇ ἀληθείᾳ ἀλλὰ εὐδοκήσαντες τῇ ἀδικίᾳ

My Translation
1 Brothers, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together up to him, we ask you 2 to not be quickly shaken from your mind and not be disturbed through a spirit or message or letter like it is from us because the Day of the Lord has come. 3 Don’t let anyone deceive you in any way, unless the apostasy came already and the man of lawlessness, the son of destruction, was revealed. 4 [He is] the one who opposes and exalts himself over everything said to be god or worshiped. For this reason he sits in the temple of God and proclaims himself to be God. 5 [Do] you not remember when I was with you this was spoken to you? 6 And so you know his restrainer, [he is] to be revealed in his own time. 7 For the mystery of lawlessness is already working, only the restraining one [does so] now until out of your midst he might become. 8 And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord destroys by the breath of his mouth and will abolish by the appearing of his return. 9 [His] coming is in accordance with Satan’s work with all kinds of power and miracles and false wonders 10 and with all kinds of evil deceptions for those who are perishing, because love for the truth was not in them to be saved. 11 So because of this God sends to them a deluding influence that they will believe the deception 12 so that they will be condemned, everyone who did not believe the truth but delighted in wickedness.

Notes for 2:1
ἐρωτῶμεν δὲ ὑμᾶς ἀδελφοί ὑπὲρ τῆς παρουσίας τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ καὶ ἡμῶν ἐπισυναγωγῆς ἐπ’ αὐτόν — Brothers, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together up to him, we ask you
I re-ordered the sentence to flow better. The main verb is ἐρωτῶμεν which is the first word of the Greek sentence. However most of 2:1 is subordinate to the subject clause and creates too much space between the verb and the rest of the sentence in 2:2.

Notes on 2:2
εἰς τὸ μὴ ταχέως σαλευθῆναι ὑμᾶς ἀπὸ τοῦ νοὸς μηδὲ θροεῖσθαι μήτε διὰ πνεύματος μήτε διὰ λόγου μήτε δι’ ἐπιστολῆς ὡς δι’ ἡμῶν ὡς ὅτι ἐνέστηκεν ἡ ἡμέρα τοῦ κυρίου — to not be quickly shaken in your mind and not be disturbed through a spirit or message or letter like it is from us because the Day of the Lord has come.
The preposition ἀπὸ carries the idea of movement away from something. But here I translated ἀπὸ as “in” so as to indicate that our minds needs not be shaken up.

Notes on 2:3
μή τις ὑμᾶς ἐξαπατήσῃ κατὰ μηδένα τρόπον ὅτι ἐὰν μὴ ἔλθῃ ἡ ἀποστασία πρῶτον καὶ ἀποκαλυφθῇ ὁ ἄνθρωπος τῆς ἀνομίας ὁ υἱὸς τῆς ἀπωλείας — Don’t let anyone deceive you in any way, unless the apostasy came already and the man of lawlessness, the son of destruction, was revealed.
2 Thessalonians 2:3-4 is one sentence but I broke them up for a better flow in the English.
The first phrase was just indicative of the challenge this passage presents to the translator. I think Paul lost his mind when composing this portion of the letter. No wonder people are confused! First there was μή τις ὑμᾶς ἐξαπατήσῃ. Nothing I tried made it smooth out because literally it reads “not anyone you [all] might deceive.” I ended up consulting some translations and they gave it an imperative force so I followed them.
The second problem in this verse was κατὰ μηδένα τρόπον. Literally it reads “according to nothing way.” Again I have to ask, what do you do with that? The best I could do, and the translations I checked agreed, is my rendering it “in any way.”
Next was Paul’s transition into the “man of lawlessness” language in 2:3. It starts out as ὅτι ἐὰν μὴ ἔλθῃ, “because if not came.” ἐὰν μὴ is taken as an idiom here meaning “unless.” Thus the point of the whole statement is to not be deceived about Christ’s coming again because there are certain signs that must occur first, namely a great apostasy and the coming of the lawless one, the son of perdition. As to who or what these are is beyond the scope of this post. I am not positing an eschatology but only a translation.

Notes on 2:4
ὁ ἀντικείμενος καὶ ὑπεραιρόμενος ἐπὶ πάντα λεγόμενον θεὸν ἢ σέβασμα ὥστε αὐτὸν εἰς τὸν ναὸν τοῦ θεοῦ καθίσαι ἀποδεικνύντα ἑαυτὸν ὅτι ἔστιν θεός — [He is] the one who opposes and exalts himself over everything said to be god or worshiped. For this reason he sits in the temple of God and proclaims himself to be God.
Again, I broke this sentence that comprises 2:3-4 into three sentences, two of which are here in 2:4. In order to make sentence #2 that begins 2:4 I added the bracketed “He is” to show that the participle ὁ ἀντικείμενος refers to the man of lawlessness, the son destined for destruction seen in 2:3.

Notes on 2:5
οὐ μνημονεύετε ὅτι ἔτι ὢν πρὸς ὑμᾶς ταῦτα ἔλεγον ὑμῖν — [Do] you not remember when I was with you this was spoken to you?
I turned this sentence in 2:5 into an interrogative sentence, a question, in order to smooth out the flow of thought. Paul is asking the Thessalonians a rhetorical question that should be answered in the affirmative and therefore calm them down. Therefore I began the sentence with an added “Do” placed in brackets.

Notes on 2:6
καὶ νῦν τὸ κατέχον οἴδατε εἰς τὸ ἀποκαλυφθῆναι αὐτὸν ἐν τῷ ἑαυτοῦ καιρῷ –And so you know his restrainer, [he is] to be revealed in his own time.
Again, the grammar here becomes extremely difficult to wade through. It is very muddy waters here. The difficulty here is to discern who the antecedent of τὸ ἀποκαλυφθῆναι is. Does this refer to the son of perdition (2:3) or τὸ κατέχον? Who is to be revealed here?
What I found cool about reading this was how the prepositional phrase, ἐν τῷ ἑαυτοῦ καιρῷ, made the aorist passive infinitive, τὸ ἀποκαλυφθῆναι, a future verb. I find that to be sooo cool.

Notes on 2:7
τὸ γὰρ μυστήριον ἤδη ἐνεργεῖται τῆς ἀνομίας μόνον ὁ κατέχων ἄρτι ἕως ἐκ μέσου γένηται — For the mystery of lawlessness is already working, only the restraining one [does so] now until out of your midst he might become.
This has to be the most difficult text in all of 2 Thessalonians 2:1-12 to get one’s mind around. The first half of the verse, τὸ γὰρ μυστήριον ἤδη ἐνεργεῖται τῆς ἀνομίας, is very straight forward and easy to get. The second half of the verse, μόνον ὁ κατέχων ἄρτι ἕως ἐκ μέσου γένηται, has a subjunctive verb as its main verb and the prepositional phrase, ἐκ μέσου, does nothing to clarify who or what is going on here. What does one do with that? I could only add the bracketed words “does so” to create some sort of finite verb and get a flow going. This is what the translations I checked out did as well. I have no idea who is being spoken of here. Notice also that the restraining one has gone from neuter in 2:6 to masculine in 2:5. Why the switch? Do you the reader of this post have any better ideas on how to render this passage? If so comment below because my head hurts because of this.

Notes on 2:8
καὶ τότε ἀποκαλυφθήσεται ὁ ἄνομος ὃν ὁ κύριος Ἰησοῦς ἀνελεῖ τῷ πνεύματι τοῦ στόματος αὐτοῦ καὶ καταργήσει τῇ ἐπιφανείᾳ τῆς παρουσίας αὐτοῦ — And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord destroys by the breath of his mouth and will abolish by the appearing of his return.
This verse helps alleviate some of the difficulty of 2:7 as it seems that it was the restrainer was to “come out of the midst of them” (2:7) because of the temporal nature of καὶ τότε. It does seem that my adding in 2:7 “does so” was justified.
The dative noun τῷ πνεύματι is the same word that we get “spirit” from. Here it is translated as “breath” because it comes from Jesus mouth as the genitive τοῦ στόματος αὐτοῦ indicates. This word can also be translated as “wind” as well, thus showing how vital contextual usage is vital to identifying the meaning of words is.

Notes on 2:9
οὗ ἐστιν ἡ παρουσία κατ’ ἐνέργειαν τοῦ Σατανᾶ ἐν πάσῃ δυνάμει καὶ σημείοις καὶ τέρασιν ψεύδους — [His] coming is in accordance with Satan’s work with all kinds of power and miracles and false wonders
I changed the relative pronoun that refers to ὁ ἄνομος from 2:8 to a definite “He” to hopefully make this connection more clear in the English. Let me know if it didn’t work.
Something to note about τοῦ Σατανᾶ. In Hebrew, the presence of the article might indicate not Satan but just the adversary. The article for Hebrew names is usually present in the proper name. Therefore if it is given it the name it is attached to isn’t a proper name. But in Greek, the article could have a par excellence view, the adversary, and thus point to Satan. Or it could just be indicating a specific adversary that is not only a spiritual entity but also an earthly one, like Rome or the pre-AD 70 Jews.

Notes on 2:10
καὶ ἐν πάσῃ ἀπάτῃ ἀδικίας τοῖς ἀπολλυμένοις ἀνθ’ ὧν τὴν ἀγάπην τῆς ἀληθείας οὐκ ἐδέξαντο εἰς τὸ σωθῆναι αὐτούς — and with all kinds of evil deceptions for those who are perishing, because love for the truth was not in them to be saved.
First of note is the relationship of the prepositional phrase ἐν πάσῃ ἀπάτῃ and the dative participle τοῖς ἀπολλυμένοις. The participle is independent of the preposition ἐν even though it takes it objects in the dative case. The participle is in the dative case to indicate it is for the benefit/disadvantage of the perishing, τοῖς ἀπολλυμένοις.
I love to note the voice of the infinitive τὸ σωθῆναι. It is a passive aorist. The action of salvation is passive. This passive is most likely the divine passive where God is the unspoken agent of the passive verb. It is God who saves, not man saving himself!

Notes on 2:11
καὶ διὰ τοῦτο πέμπει αὐτοῖς ὁ θεὸς ἐνέργειαν πλάνης εἰς τὸ πιστεῦσαι αὐτοὺς τῷ ψεύδει — So because of this God sends to them a deluding influence that they will believe the deception
The prepositional phrase διὰ τοῦτο is taken as causal and therefore rendered “because of this.” The pronoun τοῦτο refers to the preceding in 2:10, namely not loving the truth and believing the work of Satan.
Paul’s words here are very hard to swallow, even for me a committed Calvinist, when he says πέμπει αὐτοῖς ὁ θεὸς ἐνέργειαν πλάνης. That is very scary and gives me thanks for 2 Thessalonians 2:13-15. ὁ θεὸς is very much the subject of the verb πέμπει and its object is ἐνέργειαν πλάνης. The ἐνέργειαν πλάνης is sent to αὐτοῖς referring back to τοῖς ἀπολλυμένοις who do not believe the truth in 2:10, as indicated by it being a plural dative pronoun. God himself sends the delusion, literally “a work of error,” to the perishing judicially.
The results of this ἐνέργειαν πλάνης is devastating. note the prepositional phrase and the infinitive that accompanies it, εἰς τὸ πιστεῦσαι αὐτοὺς τῷ ψεύδει. The preposition εἰς is showing a result and is thus translated as “that.” The object of εἰς is αὐτοὺς, which is also the subject of the infinitive aorist verb τὸ πιστεῦσαι, “to believe.” Note the object here of τὸ πιστεῦσαι being τῷ ψεύδει. The lie (τῷ ψεύδει) is believed because of the “working of error” that God has sent!

Notes on 2:12
ἵνα κριθῶσιν πάντες οἱ μὴ πιστεύσαντες τῇ ἀληθείᾳ ἀλλὰ εὐδοκήσαντες τῇ ἀδικίᾳ — so that they will be condemned, everyone who did not believe the truth but delighted in wickedness.
This verse completes the thought of 2:10-11, as indicated by the ἵνα that begins the verse. This ἵνα + the subjunctive κριθῶσιν = result or purpose and therefore the subjunctive verb κριθῶσιν is rendered as an indicative future rather than a true subjunctive. Those to whom God sends the “working of error” will be judged because they will believe that error.
The two participles further describe those who are to be condemned or judged, κριθῶσιν, seen in 2:10 as τοῖς ἀπολλυμένοις. The first participle is a negative οἱ μὴ πιστεύσαντες with τῇ ἀληθείᾳ as its object. This brings the reader/speaker back to the language of τὴν ἀγάπην τῆς ἀληθείας οὐκ ἐδέξαντο in 2:10. In 2:10 they did not love the truth and here in 2:12 they did not believe the truth. It also anticipates 2:13 and πίστει ἀληθείας. Thus Paul has created quite the contrast.
The second participle in 2:12 is εὐδοκήσαντες and its object is the dative τῇ ἀδικίᾳ. This brings to mind the language found in ἀπάτῃ ἀδικίας in 2:10 and τὸ πιστεῦσαι αὐτοὺς τῷ ψεύδει in 2:11. Here we see that those under this condemnation not only believe the lie but rejoice in unrighteousness and wickedness. That is God’s judgment of τοῖς ἀπολλυμένοις (2:10).

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