Living to Please God

1FINALLY, brethren, we beseech you therefore, and conjure you by the Lord Jesus, that as ye have received of us how ye ought to walk, and please God, so ye would abound more and more. 2For ye know what commandments we gave you by the Lord Jesus. 3For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that you should abstain from whoredom; 4that every one of you may know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honour, 5not in the vile passion of lewdness, as the Gentiles which know not God; 6that no man transgress against, or act dishonestly to his brother in this matter because the Lord is the avenger of all such things, as we have told you before, and testified. 7For God hath not called us unto impurity, but unto holiness. 8Therefore he that despiseth, despiseth not man, but God, who hath also given unto us his Holy Spirit.

9Now concerning brotherly love, I have no need to write unto you: for ye yourselves are divinely taught to love one another. 10And indeed ye practise it towards all the brethren that are throughout Macedonia: but we conjure you, brethren, to abound more and more; 11and that you make it your study to live peaceably, and to do your own business, and to work with your own hands, even as we have enjoined you; 12that ye walk becomingly towards those without, and need no assistance from any person.

The Return of the Lord

13Now I would not have you ignorant, brethren, concerning those who are fallen asleep, that ye be not afflicted, as the rest of mankind who have no hope. 14For if we believe that Jesus died, and rose again, so also those that have fallen asleep for Jesus shall God bring with him. 15For this I say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left unto the coming of the Lord, shall not prevent those who are fallen asleep. 16For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first: 17then we who are alive, who remain, shall be caught up together with them into the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air; and so shall we be ever with the Lord. 18Wherefore comfort one another with these words.