1As for other matters, brethren, we beg and exhort you in the Lord Jesus: as you received from us how you should live to please God, do so even more! 2Certainly, you know what instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus. 3This is the will of God: your sanctification, and that you abstain from sexual immorality. 4Each one of you should know how to practice self-control of the body in sanctification and honor, 5not in lustful passions, as Gentiles who do not know God. 6No one should take advantage of or wrong a brother [or sister2025] in this matter, because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, as also we warned you and testified to you. 7Truly, God did not call us for impurity, but to sanctification! 8Therefore, whoever rejects this does not reject a human [command] but God, who has also given you his Holy Spirit.
9But concerning brotherly love, you have no need that anyone should write to you since you have learned from God how to love one another, 10and this is what you do toward all the brethren who are throughout Macedonia. Yet we exhort you, brethren, to overflow even more! 11Make it your goal to lead a quiet life, to take care of your own affairs, and to work with your own hands, even as we instructed you. 12Thus, you will live properly in the sight of those who are ‘outside’ and you will lack nothing.
Hope for Christians who have died
13We do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, so that you may not grieve like those who have no hope. 14For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, in the same way God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus. 15We tell you the following by the word of the Lord: we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will not precede those who have fallen asleep. 16For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God. The dead in Christ will rise first, 17then we who are alive and remain will be caught up2026 together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air. And so, we will always be with the Lord. 18Therefore, comfort one another with these words.
The Lord comes like a thief in the night
- The Greek here for “brother” (adelfo.n) can mean sibling, or someone in a close spiritual relationship, male or female.
- Greek a`rpaghso,meqa (see note on Philippians 2:6)—Latin Vulgate has “rapiemur” from which the English word “rapture” is derived.
Text: The Eastern / Greek Orthodox Bible, New Testament (EOB). Used with permission.
