1 Thessalonians 4
Open in the reader1Finally, brothers, we ask and encourage you in the Lord He-Who-Is-Saves to live in a way that is pleasing to God, just as you have received from us. This is how you already live, so you should do so all the more.
2For you know the instructions we gave you by the authority of the Lord He-Who-Is-Saves.
3For it is God’s will that you should be devoted: You must abstain from sexual immorality;
4each of you must know how to control his own body in devotedness and honor,
5not in lustful passion like the Nations who do not know God;
6and no one should ever violate or exploit his brother in this regard, because the Lord will avenge all such acts, as we have already told you and solemnly warned you.
7For God has not called us to impurity, but to devotedness.
8Anyone, then, who rejects this command does not reject man but God, the very One who gives you His Devoted Spirit.
9Now about brotherly love, you do not need anyone to write to you, because you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another.
10And you are indeed showing this love to all the brothers throughout Macedonia. But we urge you, brothers, to excel more and more
11and to aspire to live quietly, to attend to your own matters, and to work with your own hands, as we instructed you.
12Then you will behave properly toward outsiders, without being dependent on anyone.
13Brothers, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you will not grieve like the rest, who are without hope.
14For since we believe that He-Who-Is-Saves died and rose again, we also believe that God will bring with He-Who-Is-Saves those who have fallen asleep in Him.
15By the word of the Lord, we declare to you that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who have fallen asleep.
16For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a loud command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in The-Anointed-One will be the first to rise.
17After that, we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will always be with the Lord.
18Therefore encourage one another with these words.