A Life That Pleases God

1Finally, our friends, you learned from us how you should live in order to please God. This is, of course, the way you have been living. And now we beg and urge you in the name of the Lord Jesus to do even more. 2For you know the instructions we gave you by the authority of the Lord Jesus. 3God wants you to be holy and completely free from sexual immorality. 4Each of you should know how to live with your wife+ in a holy and honorable way, 5not with a lustful desire, like the heathen who do not know God. 6In this matter, then, none of you should do wrong to other Christians or take advantage of them. We have told you this before, and we strongly warned you that the Lord will punish those who do that. 7God did not call us to live in immorality, but in holiness. 8So then, whoever rejects this teaching is not rejecting a human being, but God, who gives you his Holy Spirit.

9There is no need to write you about love for each other. You yourselves have been taught by God how you should love one another. 10And you have, in fact, behaved like this toward all the believers in all of Macedonia. So we beg you, our friends, to do even more. 11Make it your aim to live a quiet life, to mind your own business, and to earn your own living, just as we told you before. 12In this way you will win the respect of those who are not believers, and you will not have to depend on anyone for what you need.

The Lord's Coming

13Our friends, we want you to know the truth about those who have died, so that you will not be sad, as are those who have no hope. 14We believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will take back with Jesus those who have died believing in him.

15 What we are teaching you now is the Lord's teaching: we who are alive on the day the Lord comes will not go ahead of those who have died. 16 There will be the shout of command, the archangel's voice, the sound of God's trumpet, and the Lord himself will come down from heaven. Those who have died believing in Christ will rise to life first; 17then we who are living at that time will be gathered up along with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will always be with the Lord. 18So then, encourage one another with these words.