Living to Please God

1Finally then, brothers, we ask and exhort you⁺ in the Lord Jesus that, just as you⁺ received from us how it is necessary for you⁺ to walk and to please God, just as also you⁺ walk,† that you⁺ may abound more. 2For you⁺ know what instructions we gave you⁺ through the Lord Jesus.

3For this is the will of God—your⁺ sanctification: for you⁺ to abstain from sexual immorality; 4for each of you⁺ to know how to possess his own vessel† in sanctification and honor, 5not in the passion of lust just as also the Gentiles, those not knowing God; 6not to go beyond and to take advantage of his brother in the matter,† because the Lord is avenging concerning all these things, just as also we said before to you⁺ and earnestly testified. 7For God did not call us to impurity, but in sanctification. 8So then, the one setting this aside does not set aside man but God, the One also giving† His Holy Spirit to you⁺.

9Now concerning brotherly love, you⁺ have no need for one to write to you⁺, for you⁺ yourselves are taught by God to love one another. 10For also you⁺ are doing this to all the brothers, the ones in all Macedonia. But we exhort you⁺, brothers, to abound more, 11and to strive earnestly to live quietly and to do your own things, and to work with your⁺ own hands,† just as we commanded you⁺, 12so that you⁺ may walk properly toward those outside and may have need of no one.

The Return of the Lord

13But we do not want† you⁺ to be ignorant, brothers, concerning those having fallen asleep,† so that you⁺ should not be grieved, just as also the rest, those having no hope. 14For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, so also through Jesus God will bring with Him those having fallen asleep.

15For this we say to you⁺ in the word of the Lord, that we the living, remaining unto the coming of the Lord, shall not precede those having fallen asleep, 16because the Lord Himself with a loud command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17Then we, the living remaining, will be caught up together with them in the clouds for the meeting of the Lord in the air; and so we will be always with the Lord.

18Therefore encourage one another in these words.

Footnotes:

1 BYZ and TR do not include just as also you walk.
4 Or know how to control his own body
6 Or no one should ever harm or cheat his brother in this matter
8 BYZ and TR God, who also gave
11 SBL, TH, and WH your hands
13 TR I do not want
13 Or those who sleep in death