1 Thessalonians 4

¹Finally then, brothers, we beg and exhort you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God, that you abound more and more.

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

³For this is the will of God: your sanctification, that you abstain from sexual immorality,

⁴that each one of you know how to control his own body in sanctification and honor,

⁵not in the passion of lust, even as the Gentiles who don’t know God,

⁶that no one should take advantage of and wrong a brother or sister in this matter; because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, as also we forewarned you and testified.

⁷For God called us not for uncleanness, but in sanctification.

⁸Therefore he who rejects this doesn’t reject man, but God, who has also given his Holy Spirit to you.

⁹But concerning brotherly love, you have no need that one write to you. For you yourselves are taught by God to love one another,

¹⁰for indeed you do it toward all the brothers who are in all Macedonia. But we exhort you, brothers, that you abound more and more;

¹¹and that you make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, and to do your own business, and to work with your own hands, even as we instructed you,

¹²that you may walk properly toward those who are outside, and may have need of nothing.

¹³But we don’t want you to be ignorant, brothers, concerning those who have fallen asleep, so that you don’t grieve like the rest, who have no hope.

¹⁴For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus.

¹⁵For this we tell you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will in no way precede those who have fallen asleep.

¹⁶For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with God’s trumpet. The dead in Christ will rise first,

¹⁷then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. So we will be with the Lord forever.

¹⁸Therefore comfort one another with these words.

¹But concerning the times and the seasons, brothers, you have no need that anything be written to you.

²For you yourselves know well that the day of the Lord comes like a thief in the night.

³For when they are saying, “Peace and safety,” then sudden destruction will come on them, like birth pains on a pregnant woman. Then they will in no way escape.

⁴But you, brothers, aren’t in darkness, that the day should overtake you like a thief.

⁵You are all children of light and children of the day. We don’t belong to the night, nor to darkness,

⁶so then let’s not sleep, as the rest do, but let’s watch and be sober.

⁷For those who sleep, sleep in the night; and those who are drunk are drunk in the night.

⁸But since we belong to the day, let’s be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet, the hope of salvation.

⁹For God didn’t appoint us to wrath, but to the obtaining of salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ,

¹⁰who died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him.

¹¹Therefore exhort one another, and build each other up, even as you also do.