The Call to Sanctification

1Additionally then, brothers and sisters, we ask and encourage you in the Lord Jesus, that as you have received instruction from us on how you should live and please God — as you are doingA — do this even more. 2For you know what commands we gave you through the Lord Jesus.

3For this is God’s will,a your sanctification:b that you keep awayc from sexual immorality, 4that each of you knows how to control his own bodyA in holiness and honor, 5not with lustful passions,a like the Gentiles, who don’t know God. 6This means one must not transgress against and take advantagea of a brother or sister in this manner, because the Lord is an avenger of all these offenses, as we also previously told and warned you. 7For God has not called us to impuritya but to live in holiness. 8Consequently, anyone who rejects this does not reject man, but God, who gives you his Holy Spirit.a

Loving and Working

9About brotherly love: You don’t need me to write you because you yourselves are taught by Goda to love one another.b 10In fact, you are doing this toward all the brothers and sisters in the entire region of Macedonia.a But we encourage you, brothers and sisters, to do this even more, 11to seek to lead a quiet life,a to mind your own business,A and to workb with your own hands, as we commanded you, 12so that you may behave properlya in the presence of outsiders and not be dependent on anyone.a b

The Comfort of Christ’s Coming

13We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, concerning those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve like the rest, who have no hope.a 14For if we believe that Jesus died and rosea again,b in the same way, through Jesus,c God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. 15For we say this to you by a word from the Lord:a We who are still alive at the Lord’s comingb will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep.c 16For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout,a a with the archangel’sb voice, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christc will rise first. 17Thena we who are still alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the cloudsb to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. 18Therefore encourageA one another with these words.