Jubilee2000 - I Thessalonians - 4

4:1  It is in order then, brethren, that we beseech and exhort [you] in the Lord Jesus, that in the manner ye were taught of us how ye ought to walk and to please God, [so] ye would continue to grow.

4:2  For ye already know what commandments we gave you by the Lord Jesus.

4:3  For the will of God is your sanctification, that ye should separate [yourselves] from fornication,

4:4  that every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honesty,

4:5  not with affection of lust, as the Gentiles who do not know God,

4:6  That no one oppress and defraud his brother in [any] matter because the Lord [is] the avenger of all such, as we also have forewarned you and testified.

4:7  For God has not called us unto uncleanness, but unto sanctification.

4:8  He therefore that despises [us], does not despise man, but God, who has also given unto us his Holy Spirit.

4:9  But as touching love among the brethren, ye need not that I write unto you, for ye yourselves have learned of God that ye are to show charity to one another.

4:10  And indeed ye do it toward all the brethren who are in all Macedonia, but we beseech you, brethren, that ye continue to grow

4:11  and that ye procure to be quiet and to do your business and to work with your hands, as we commanded you,

4:12  that ye may walk honestly toward those that are without, and [that] ye may desire nothing from any one.

4:13  But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as the others who have no hope.

4:14  For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so those who sleep in Jesus will God also bring with him.

4:15  For this, we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive [and] remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not precede those who are asleep.

4:16  For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first;

4:17  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.

4:18  Therefore comfort one another with these words.: