1 Thessalonians 4:1–18

¹Finally, brothers, we request ​YOU​ and exhort ​YOU​ by the Lord Jesus, just as ​YOU​ received [the instruction] from us on how ​YOU​ ought to walk and please God, just as ​YOU​ are in fact walking, that ​YOU​ would keep on doing it more fully.²For ​YOU​ know the orders we gave ​YOU​ through the Lord Jesus.

³For this is what God wills, the sanctifying of ​YOU, that ​YOU​ abstain from fornication;⁴that each one of ​YOU​ should know how to get possession of his own vessel in sanctification and honor,⁵not in covetous sexual appetite such as also those nations have which do not know God;⁶that no one go to the point of harming and encroach upon the rights of his brother in this matter, because Jehovah is one who exacts punishment for all these things, just as we told ​YOU​ beforehand and also gave ​YOU​ a thorough witness.⁷For God called us, not with allowance for uncleanness, but in connection with sanctification.⁸So, then, the man that shows disregard is disregarding, not man, but God, who puts his holy spirit in ​YOU.

⁹However, with reference to brotherly love, ​YOU​ do not need us to be writing ​YOU, for ​YOU​ yourselves are taught by God to love one another;¹⁰and, in fact, ​YOU​ are doing it to all the brothers in all of Mac‧e‧do′ni‧a. But we exhort ​YOU, brothers, to go on doing it in fuller measure,¹¹and to make it ​YOUR​ aim to live quietly and to mind ​YOUR​ own business and work with ​YOUR​ hands, just as we ordered ​YOU;¹²so that ​YOU​ may be walking decently as regards people outside and not be needing anything.

¹³Moreover, brothers, we do not want ​YOU​ to be ignorant concerning those who are sleeping [in death]; that ​YOU​ may not sorrow just as the rest also do who have no hope.¹⁴For if our faith is that Jesus died and rose again, so, too, those who have fallen asleep [in death] through Jesus God will bring with him.¹⁵For this is what we tell ​YOU​ by Jehovah’s word, that we the living who survive to the presence of the Lord shall in no way precede those who have fallen asleep [in death];¹⁶because the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a commanding call, with an archangel’s voice and with God’s trumpet, and those who are dead in union with Christ will rise first.¹⁷Afterward we the living who are surviving will, together with them, be caught away in clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and thus we shall always be with [the] Lord.¹⁸Consequently keep comforting one another with these words.