Live to Please God
1 Finally then, brothers, we beg and exhort you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God, that you abound more and more. 2 For you know what instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus.
3 For this is the will of God: your sanctification, that you abstain from sexual immorality, 4 that each one of you know how to control his own body in sanctification and honor, 5 not in the passion of lust, as the Gentiles, who do not know God, 6 that no one should transgress and defraud his brother or sister in this matter, because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, as we also forewarned you and testified. 7 For God called us not for impurity, but for sanctification. 8 Therefore he who rejects this does not reject man, but God, who has also given his Holy Spirit to you.
9 But concerning brotherly love, you have no need of anyone writing to you, for you yourselves are taught by God to love one another. 10 Indeed, you do it toward all the brothers who are in all Macedonia. But we exhort you, brothers, that you abound more and more, 11 and that you make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to do your own business, and to work with your own hands, just as we instructed you, 12 that you may walk properly toward those who are outside and may have need of nothing.
The Return of the Lord
13 But we do not want you to be ignorant, brothers, concerning those who have fallen asleep, so that you do not grieve like the rest, who have no hope. 14 Since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, so God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep through Jesus.
15 For this we tell you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will in no way precede those who have fallen asleep. 16 For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God. The dead in Christ will rise first, 17 then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air. So we will be with the Lord forever. 18 Therefore comfort one another with these words.