1 Sanctification and Love Finally then, brothers, we ask and exhort you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received from us as to how you ought to 4:1Or conduct yourselves walk and please God (just as you actually do 4:1Or conduct yourselves walk), that you excel still more.
2 For you know what commandments we gave you through the Lord Jesus.
3 For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from 4:3Or fornication sexual immorality;
4 that each of you know how to 4:4Or acquire possess his own 4:4Body, wife vessel in sanctification and honor,
5 not in 4:5 Lit passion of lust lustful passion, like the Gentiles who do not know God;
6 andthat no man transgress and defraud his brother in the matter because the Lord istheavenger in all these things, just as we also told you before and solemnly warnedyou.
7 For God did not call us to impurity, but 4:7In the state or sphere of in sanctification.
8 Consequently, he who setsthisaside is not setting aside man but the God who gives His Holy Spirit to you.
9 Now concerning love of the brothers, you have no need foranyoneto write to you, for you yourselves are taught by God to love one another,
10 for indeed you do practice it toward all the brothers who are in all Macedonia. But we urge you, brothers, to excel still more,
11 and to make it your ambition to lead a quiet life and attend to your own business and work with your hands, just as we commanded you,
12 so that you will walk properly toward outsiders and 4:12 Lit have need of nothing not be in any need.The Dead in Christ Will Rise
13 But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope.
14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep 4:14Lit through in Jesus.
15 For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive 4:15 Lit who and remain until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep.
16 For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a 4:16Or cry of command shout, with the voice ofthearchangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.
17 Then we who are alive 4:17 Lit who and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord.
18 Therefore comfort one another with these words.