41 Finally then , brethren , we request and exhort you in the Lord Jesus , that as you received from us instruction as to how you ought to walk and please God (just as you actually do walk ), that you excel still more . 2 For you know what commandments we gave you by the authority of the Lord Jesus . 3 For this is the will of God , your sanctification ; that is, that you abstain from sexual immorality ; 4 that each of you know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor , 5 not in lustful passion , like the Gentiles who do not know God ; 6 and that no man transgress and defraud his brother in the matter because the Lord is the avenger in all these things , just as we also told you before and solemnly warned you. 7 For God has not called us for the purpose of impurity , but in sanctification . 8 So , he who rejects this is not rejecting man but the God who gives His Holy Spirit to you.
9 Now as to the love of the brethren , you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves are taught by God to love one another ; 10 for indeed you do practice it toward all the brethren who are in all Macedonia . But we urge you, brethren , to excel still more , 11 and to make it your ambition to lead a quiet life and attend to your own business and work with your hands , just as we commanded you, 12 so that you will behave properly toward outsiders e and not be in any need .
13 But we do not want you to be uninformed , brethren , about those who are asleep , so that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope . 14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again , even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus . 15 For this we say to you by the word of the Lord , that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord , will not 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 , and the dead in Christ will rise first . 17 Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air , and so we shall always be with the Lord . 18 Therefore comfort one another with these words .
