New Testament

1 Thessalonians — Chapter 4

  1. Finally, brothers and sisters, we ask and urge you in the Lord Jesus to do this: live in a way that pleases God, as you have learned from us.
  2. For you know what instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus.
  3. It is God’s will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality;
  4. that each of you should learn to control your own body in a way that is holy and honorable,
  5. not in passionate lust like the pagans, who do not know God;
  6. and that in this matter no one should wrong or take advantage of a brother or sister. The Lord will punish all those who commit such sins, as we told you and warned you before.
  7. For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life.
  8. Therefore, anyone who rejects this instruction does not reject a human being but God, the very God who gives you his Holy Spirit.
  9. Now about brotherly love you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another;
  10. and indeed, you do love all the brothers and sisters throughout Macedonia. But we urge you, brothers and sisters, to do so more and more,
  11. and to make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business, and to work with your hands, just as we instructed you,
  12. so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one.
  13. 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.
  14. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have died.
  15. 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.
  16. 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.
  17. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and so we will be with the Lord forever.
  18. Therefore encourage one another with these words.