Living in a Way That Pleases God

¹Now I want to talk about some other matters, brothers and sisters. We taught you how to live in a way that pleases God, and that’s how you’re living. But in the name of the Lord Jesus, we ask you and urge you to do that more and more.

²You know the directions we gave you by the authority of the Lord Jesus.

³It is God’s will for you to be made holy. He wants you to stay away from sexual sins.

⁴He wants all of you to learn to control your own bodies in a way that is holy and honorable.

⁵Don’t desire to commit sexual sins like people who don’t know God.

⁶None of you should sin against your brother or sister by doing that. You shouldn’t take advantage of your brother or sister. The Lord will punish everyone who commits sins like those. We’ve already told you and warned you about that.

⁷God didn’t call us to live impure lives, but holy ones.

⁸If anyone refuses to accept this teaching, they’re not rejecting a human being. They’re rejecting God, the very same God who gives you his Holy Spirit.

⁹We don’t need to write to you about your love for one another, because God himself has taught you to love one another.

¹⁰You do love all of God’s family throughout Macedonia. But we’re still urging you, brothers and sisters, to love one another more and more.

¹¹Do everything you can to live a quiet life. You should mind your own business and work with your hands, just as we told you to.

¹²Then outsiders will have respect for your everyday life, and you won’t have to depend on anyone.

What Happens to Believers Who Have Died

¹³Brothers and sisters, we want you to know what happens to those who die. We don’t want you to mourn, as other people do because they don’t have any hope.

¹⁴We believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we also believe that God will bring back with Jesus his followers who have already died.

¹⁵Following what the Lord himself has said, we tell you that at the Lord’s royal arrival, we who are still alive will not precede those who have died.

¹⁶The Lord himself will come down from heaven shouting a command, with the voice of the chief angel, and with a blast from God’s trumpet. Then those who believed in Christ but have already died will rise first.

¹⁷After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to welcome the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever.

¹⁸So encourage one another with these words.