Awake

$paged = (get_query_var('paged')) ? get_query_var('paged') : 1; 

$args = array( 
        'post_type' => 'post', 
        'cat' => 2, 
        'order' => 'ASC', 
        'posts_per_page' => 3, 
        'paged' =>  $paged
);

$posts = new WP_Query( $args );

if ( $posts-> have_posts() ) :
  while ($posts->have_posts()) : $posts->the_post();

   echo get_the_post_thumbnail();
   echo the_category();
   echo get_permalink();
   the_title();
   echo wp_trim_words(get_the_content(), 100);
   echo get_the_author_meta('display_name', $author_id);
   echo get_the_date();
   echo get_the_time();
   echo get_comments_number_text();

 endwhile;

 pagination_bar( $posts );

endif; 
wp_reset_postdata();