Paul urges believers to live to please God, to be holy and to love one another. He comforts them about those who have died: Christ will return, the dead in Christ will rise first, and believers will be with the Lord forever.
1 Furthermore then we beseech you , brethren , and exhort you by the Lord Jesus , that as ye have received of us how ye ought to walk and to please God , so ye would abound more and more .
2 For ye know what commandments we gave you by the Lord Jesus .
3 For this is the will of God , even your sanctification , that ye should abstain from fornication :
4 That every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honour ;
5 Not in the lust of concupiscence , even as the Gentiles which know not God :
6 That no man go beyond and defraud his brother in any matter : because that the Lord is the avenger of all such , as we also have forewarned you and testified .
7 For God hath not called us unto uncleanness , but unto holiness .
8 He therefore that despiseth , despiseth not man , but God , who hath also given unto us his holy Spirit .
9 But as touching brotherly love ye need not that I write unto you : for ye yourselves are taught of God to love one another .
10 And indeed ye do it toward all the brethren which are in all Macedonia : but we beseech you , brethren , that ye increase more and more ;
11 And that ye study to be quiet , and to do your own business , and to work with your own hands , as we commanded you ;
12 That ye may walk honestly toward them that are without , and that ye may have lack of nothing .
13 But I would not have you to be ignorant , brethren , concerning them which are asleep , that ye sorrow not , even as others which have no hope .
14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again , even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him .
15 For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord , that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep .
16 For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout , with the voice of the archangel , and with the trump of God : and the dead in Christ shall rise first :
17 Then we which 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 .
18 Wherefore comfort one another with these words .