¹¹ Besides this you know the time, that the hour has come for you ^(A)to wake from sleep. ^(B)For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed. ^12 (C)The night is far gone; the day is at hand. So then let us ^(D)cast off ^(E)the works of darkness and ^(F)put on the armor of light.

^20 (A)The God of peace ^(B)will soon crush Satan under your feet. ^(C)The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.

²⁷ Are you bound to a wife? Do not seek to be free. Are you free from a wife? Do not seek a wife. ²⁸ But if you do marry, you have not sinned, and if a betrothed woman^[a] marries, she has not sinned. Yet those who marry will have worldly troubles, and I would spare you that. ²⁹ This is what I mean, brothers: ^(A)the appointed time has grown very short. From now on, let those who have wives live as though they had none, ³⁰ and those who mourn as though they were not mourning, and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing, and those who buy ^(B)as though they had no goods, ³¹ and those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it. For ^(C)the present form of this world is passing away.

¹¹ Now these things happened to them as an example, but ^(A)they were written down for our instruction, ^(B)on whom the end of the ages has come.

²⁶ For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death ^(A)until he comes.

^4 (A)who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present ^(B)evil age, according to the will of ^(C)our God and Father,

⁵ Let your reasonableness^[a] be known to everyone. ^(A)The Lord is at hand;

¹⁰ and ^(A)to wait for his Son ^(B)from heaven, ^(C)whom he raised from the dead, Jesus ^(D)who delivers us from ^(E)the wrath to come.

¹⁵ For this we declare to you ^(A)by a word from the Lord,^[a] that ^(B)we who are alive, who are left until ^(C)the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. ¹⁶ For ^(D)the Lord himself will descend ^(E)from heaven ^(F)with a cry of command, with the voice of ^(G)an archangel, and ^(H)with the sound of the trumpet of God. And ^(I)the dead in Christ will rise first. ¹⁷ Then we who are alive, who are left, will be ^(J)caught up together with them ^(K)in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so ^(L)we will always be with the Lord.