1 Thessalonians 4

¹Finally then, brethren, we beseech and exhort you in the Lord Jesus, that, as ye received of us how ye ought to walk and to please God, even as ye do walk,—that ye abound more and more. ²For ye know what charge we gave you through the Lord Jesus. ³For this is the will of God, evenyour sanctification, that ye abstain from fornication; ⁴that each one of you know how to possess himself of his own vessel in sanctification and honour, ⁵not in the passion of lust, even as the Gentiles which know not God; ⁶that no man transgress, and wrong his brother in the 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 that rejecteth, rejecteth not man, but God, who giveth his Holy Spirit unto you. ⁹But concerning love of the brethren ye have no need that one write unto you: for ye yourselves are taught of God to love one another; ¹⁰for indeed ye do it toward all the brethren which are in all Macedonia. But we exhort you, brethren, that ye abound more and more; ¹¹and that ye study to be quiet, and to do your own business, and to work with your hands, even as we charged you; ¹²that ye may walk honestly toward them that are without, and may have need of nothing. ¹³But we would not have you ignorant, brethren, concerning them that fall asleep; that ye sorrow not, even as the rest, which have no hope. ¹⁴For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also that are fallen asleep in Jesus will God bring with him. ¹⁵For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we that are alive, that are left unto the coming of the Lord, shall in no wise precede them that are fallen asleep. ¹⁶For 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: ¹⁷then we that are alive, that are left, shall together with them be caught up in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. ¹⁸Wherefore comfort one another with these words.