1 Thessalonians 4

Modern English Version

A Life Pleasing to God

4 Finally, brothers, we urge and exhort you by the Lord Jesus, that as you have learned from us how you ought to walk and to please God, you should excel more and more. ² For you know what commands we gave you through the Lord Jesus.

³ For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you should abstain from sexual immorality, ⁴ that each one of you should know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, ⁵ not in the lust of depravity, even as the Gentiles who do not know God, ⁶ and that no man take advantage of and defraud his brother in any matter, because the Lord is the avenger in all these things, as we also have forewarned you and testified. ⁷ For God has not called us to uncleanness, but to holiness. ⁸ Therefore he that despises does not despise man, but God, who has also given us His Holy Spirit.

⁹ As 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 have love for all the brothers who are in all Macedonia. But we urge you, brothers, that you increase more and more. ¹¹ Learn to be calm, and to conduct your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you, ¹² so that you may walk honestly toward those who are outsiders and that you may lack nothing.

The Lord’s Coming

¹³ But I would not have you ignorant, brothers, concerning those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others who have no hope. ¹⁴ For if we believe that Jesus died and arose again, so God will bring with Him those who sleep 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 are asleep. ¹⁶ For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet call of God. And the dead in Christ will 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 we shall be forever with the Lord. ¹⁸ Therefore comfort one another with these words.