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then, brothers, we ask you and encourage you in the Lord Jesus that as we instructed you how to live in order to please God—even as you have been doing—you should do so more and more. 2 For you know what instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus.
3 It is God’s will that you should be sanctified: that you should abstain from sexual immorality; 4 that each of you should know how to control his own body in way that is sanctified and honourable, 5 and not in passionate lust, like the Gentiles who do not know God; 6 and that no one should wrong or take advantage of his brother in this matter, because the Lord is an avenger of all these sins, as we have already told you and warned you. 7 For God has not called us to impurity, but to holiness. 8 Therefore, he who rejects this does not reject man, but God, who gives you his Holy Spirit.
9 Now concerning brotherly love you do not need me to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another. 10 And in fact, you do love all the brothers who are throughout all Macedonia. But we urge you, brothers, to do so more and more.
11 Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business, and to work with your hands, just as we told you, 12 so that you may walk uprightly in the presence of outsiders and not be dependent on anyone.
13 We do not want you to be ignorant, brothers, about those who fall asleep, so that you may not grieve like others who have no hope. 14 We believe that Jesus died and rose again, and in the same way God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus. 15 For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are still alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who have fallen asleep. 16 The Lord Himself will descend from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel, and with the sounding of God’s trumpet, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 Then we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will always be with the Lord forever. 18 Therefore encourage one another with these words.