1 Thessalonians 4

1 As to what remains, then, brethren, we beseech and exhort you by the Lord Jesus, that as you have received from us, how you ought to walk, and please God, you would more abound in it.

2 For you know what commandments we gave you by the Lord Jesus;

3 for this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that you should abstain from whoredom--

4 that every one of you should know how to possess his own body in sanctification and honor--

5 not in the passion of lust, even as the Gentiles who know not God.

6 That no man should go beyond bounds, or defraud his brother in this matter, because the Lord is an avenger of all such;

7 for God has not called us to impurity, but to holiness.

8 Therefore, indeed, he who despises not man, but God, who certainly has given to us his Holy Spirit.

9 But, concerning brotherly love, you have no need that I write to you, for you yourselves are taught of God to love one another.

10 And, indeed, you do it toward all the brethren who are in all Macedonia: but we exhort you, brethren, still to abound,

11 and earnestly study to be quiet; and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you:

12 that you may walk decently toward them who are without, and may have need of nothing.

13 Now, I would not have you ignorant, brethren, concerning them who sleep; that you may not be grieved, even as the others, who have no hope.

14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again; so, also, them who sleep, will God, through Jesus, bring with him.

15 Besides, this we affirm to you, by the word of the Lord, that we, the living, who remain at the coming of the Lord, shall not anticipate them who are asleep:

16 for the Lord himself will descend from heaven, with a shout, with the voice of the Arch Angel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ shall rise first;

17 afterward we, the living, who remain, shall, at the same time with them, be instantly taken up in clouds, to join the Lord in the air; and so we shall be for ever with the Lord.

18 Wherefore, comfort one another with these words.