001 Furthermore then we beseech you, brethren, and exhort you by the Lord Jesus, that as ye have received of us how ye ought to walk and to please God, so ye would abound more and more.
002 For ye know what commandments we gave you by the Lord Jesus.
003 For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication:
004 That every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honour;
005 Not in the lust of concupiscence, even as the Gentiles which know not God:
006 That no man go beyond and defraud his brother in any matter: because that the Lord is the avenger of all such, as we also have forewarned you and testified.
007 For God hath not called us unto uncleanness, but unto holiness.
008 He therefore that despiseth, despiseth not man, but God, who hath also given unto us his holy Spirit.
009 But as touching brotherly love ye need not that I write unto you: for ye yourselves are taught of God to love one another.
010 And indeed ye do it toward all the brethren which are in all Macedonia: but we beseech you, brethren, that ye increase more and more;
011 And that ye study to be quiet, and to do your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you;
012 That ye may walk honestly toward them that are without, and that ye may have lack of nothing.
013 But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope.
014 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him.
015 For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep.
016 For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:
017 Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.
018 Wherefore comfort one another with these words.