Living to Please God

1Therefore, concerning other things, brothers, we ask and beg you, in the Lord Jesus, that, just as you have received from us the way in which you ought to walk and to please God, so also may you walk, in order that you may abound all the more. 2For you know what precepts I have given to you through the Lord Jesus. 3For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you should abstain from fornication, 4that each one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honor, 5not in passions of lust, like the Gentiles who do not know God, 6and that no one should overwhelm or circumvent his brother in business. For the Lord is the vindicator of all these things, just as we have preached and testified to you. 7For God has not called us to impurity, but to sanctification. 8And so, whoever despises these teachings, does not despise man, but God, who has even provided his Holy Spirit within us.

9But concerning the charity of brotherhood, we have no need to write to you. For you yourselves have learned from God that you should love one another. 10For indeed, you act in this way with all the brothers in all of Macedonia. But we petition you, brothers, so that you may abound all the more, 11to choose work that allows you to be tranquil, and to carry out your business and to do your work with your own hands, just as we have instructed you, 12and to walk honestly with those who are outside, and to desire nothing belonging to another.

The Return of the Lord

13And we do not want you to be ignorant, brothers, concerning those who are sleeping, so as not to be sorrowful, like these others who do not have hope. 14For if we believe that Jesus has died and risen again, so also will God bring back with Jesus those who sleep in him. 15For we say this to you, in the Word of the Lord: that we who are alive, who remain until the return of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. 16For the Lord himself, with a command and with the voice of an Archangel and with a trumpet of God, shall descend from heaven. And the dead, who are in Christ, shall rise up first. 17Next, we who are alive, who are remaining, shall be taken up quickly together with them into the clouds to meet Christ in the air. And in this way, we shall be with the Lord always. 18Therefore, console one another with these words.