1 Thessalonians 4:1-18
Finally, brothers and sisters, we ask and urge you in the Lord Jesus that,
as you learned from us how you ought to live and to please God (as, in
fact, you are doing), you should do so more and more. For you know what
instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus. For this is the will of
God, your sanctification: that you abstain from fornication; that each one
of you know how to control your own body in holiness and honor, not with
lustful passion, like the Gentiles who do not know God; that no one wrong
or exploit a brother or sister in this matter, because the Lord is an
avenger in all these things, just as we have already told you beforehand
and solemnly warned you. For God did not call us to impurity but in
holiness. Therefore whoever rejects this rejects not human authority but
God, who also gives his Holy Spirit to you.
Now concerning love of the brothers and sisters, you do not need to
have anyone write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to
love one another; and indeed you do love all the brothers and sisters
throughout Macedonia. But we urge you, beloved, to do so more and more,
to aspire to live quietly, to mind your own affairs, and to work with your
hands, as we directed you, so that you may behave properly toward
outsiders and be dependent on no one.
But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about
those who have died, so that you may not grieve as others do who have no
hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so,
through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have died. For this we
declare to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are
left until the coming of the Lord, will by no means precede those who have
died. For the Lord himself, with a cry of command, with the archangel's
call and with the sound of God's trumpet, will descend from heaven, and
the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left,
will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the
air; and so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage one
another with these words.
