I Thessalonians 4

1. Now then, as for the rest, brethren, we are beseeching and exhorting you in the Lord Jesus, even as you received from us how you are duty-bound to walk and to please God, that you would abound still more.

2. For you know what commandments we gave you through the Lord Jesus;

3. Because this is the will of God—even your sanctification—that you abstain from fornication,

4. And that each of you understand how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor,

5. (Not in the passion of lust, even as the Gentiles who do not know God)

6. And not to trespass and defraud his brother in this matter because the Lord is the avenger in all these matters, exactly as we also told you and fully testified before.

7. For God has not called us to uncleanness, but to sanctification.

8. Accordingly, the one who rejects these commands is not rejecting man, but God, Who also gave His Holy Spirit to us.

9. Now concerning brotherly love, you have no need for me to write to you, for you yourselves are taught by God to love one another.

10. And you also practice this toward all the brethren who are in all of Macedonia; but we exhort you, brethren, to abound even more in love;

11. And to aspire to live a quiet life, and to tend to your own business, and to work with your own hands, exactly as we have instructed you;

12. So that you may walk honestly toward those who are without, and may not need anything from anyone.

13. But I do not wish you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, that you be not grieved, even as others, who have no hope.

14. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, in exactly the same way also, those who have fallen asleep in Jesus will God bring with Him.

15. For this we say to you by the Word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall in no wise precede those who have fallen asleep

16. Because the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout of command, with the voice of an archangel and with the trumpet of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first;

17. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds for the meeting with the Lord in the air; and so shall we always be with the Lord.

18. Therefore, encourage one another with these words.