1. Furthermore then we plead with you, brethren, and exhort you by the Lord Jesus, that as you learned from us how you ought to walk and to please God, so you would abound more and more.
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 fornication:
4. That every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honor;
5. Not in the lust of evil desire, even as the Gentiles who do not know God:
6. That no one go too far and take advantage of his brother in any matter: because the Lord is the avenger of all such, as we also have forewarned you and testified.
7. For God has not called us to uncleanness, but to holiness.
8. He therefore that despises these things, does not despise man, but God, who has also given to us his Holy Spirit.
9. But concerning brotherly love, you do not need me to write to you: for you yourselves are taught by God to love one another.
10. And indeed you do it toward all the brethren who are in all Macedonia: but we plead with you, brethren, that you increase more and more;
11. And that you strive to be quiet, and to mind your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you;
12. That you may walk honestly toward those who are outside, and that you may have need of nothing.
13. But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who are asleep, so that you do not sorrow, even as others who have no hope.
14. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so those also who sleep in Jesus will God bring with him.
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 shall not precede those who 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 who 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. Therefore comfort one another with these words.
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