| 1 | Furthermore then we beseech you, brethren, and exhort [you] by the Lord Jesus, that as ye have received of us how ye ought to walk and to please God, [so] ye would abound more and more. |
| 2 | For ye know what commandments we gave you by the Lord Jesus. |
| 3 | For this is the will of God, [even] your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication: |
| 4 | That every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honour; |
| 5 | Not in the lust of concupiscence, even as the Gentiles which know not God: |
| 6 | That no [man] go beyond and defraud his brother in [any] matter: because that the Lord [is] the avenger of all such, as we also have forewarned you and testified. |
| 7 | For God hath not called us unto uncleanness, but unto holiness. |
| 8 | He therefore that despiseth, despiseth not man, but God, who hath also given unto us his holy Spirit. |
| 9 | But as touching brotherly love ye need not that I write unto you: for ye yourselves are taught of God to love one another. |
| 10 | And indeed ye do it toward all the brethren which are in all Macedonia: but we beseech you, brethren, that ye increase more and more; |
| 11 | And that ye study to be quiet, and to do your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you; |
| 12 | That ye may walk honestly toward them that are without, and [that] ye may have lack of nothing. |
| 13 | But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. |
| 14 | For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. |
| 15 | For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive [and] remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. |
| 16 | For 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: |
| 17 | Then we which are alive [and] remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. |
| 18 | Wherefore comfort one another with these words. |
