1 Thessalonians

4 For the rest, brethren, we request and exhort you in our Lord Jesus, [That] even as ye received from us how ye must needs walk and please God,—Even as ye also do walk That ye would abound still more.

2 For ye know what charges we gave you through the Lord Jesus.

3 For this is a thing willed of God, your sanctification,—That ye should abstain from unchastity,

4 That ye should know each one of you how of his own vessel to possess himself in sanctification and honour:

5 Not with a passion of coveting—Just as even the nations who know not God,—

6 Not over-reaching and defrauding in the matter his brother; Because an avenger is the Lord concerning all these things,—Even as we before told you and solemnly called you to witness.

7 For God did not call us with a permission of impurity, but in sanctification.

8 Therefore indeed he that disregardeth—It is not a man he disregardeth, but God—Who giveth his Holy Spirit unto you.

9 But concerning brotherly love—No need have ye that we be writing unto you; For ye yourselves are God-taught to the loving of one another;—

10 And in fact ye are doing it unto all the brethren [who are] in the whole of Macedonia;—But we exhort you, brethren, to abound still more,

11 And to be ambitious to be quiet And to be attending to your own affairs And to be working with your hands,—Even as unto you we gave charge—

12 That ye should walk reputably toward those without And of no one have need.

13 But we do not wish you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them who are falling asleep,—Lest ye be sorrowing even as the rest also who are without hope;

14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again So also will God bring forth with him them who have fallen asleep through Jesus;

15 For this unto you do we say by a word of the Lord,—That we the living who are left unto the Presence of the Lord Shall in nowise get before them who have fallen asleep;

16 Because the Lord himself With a word of command, With a chief-messenger’s voice And with a trumpet of God Shall descend from heaven,—And the dead in Christ shall rise first,

17 After that we the living who are left Together with them shall be caught away in clouds to meet the Lord in the air:—And thus evermore with the Lord shall we be!

18 So then be consoling one another with these words.