1 Thessalonians 3-4

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

3 Therefore when we could bear it no longer, we decided to be left alone in Athens^{(A) 2} and sent Timothy, our brother and God’s coworker^[a] in the gospel of Christ, to strengthen and encourage you for the sake of your faith,^{(B) 3} so that no one would be shaken by these persecutions. Indeed, you yourselves know that this is what we are destined for.^{(C) 4} In fact, when we were with you, we told you beforehand that we were to suffer persecution; so it turned out, as you know. ⁵ For this reason, when I could bear it no longer, I sent to find out about your faith; I was afraid that somehow the tempter had tempted you and that our labor had been in vain.^(D)

Timothy’s Encouraging Report

⁶ But Timothy has just now come to us from you and has brought us the good news of your faith and love. He has told us also that you always remember us kindly and long to see us, just as we long to see you.^{(E) 7} For this reason, brothers and sisters, during all our distress and persecution we have been encouraged about you through your faith. ⁸ For we now live, if you continue to stand firm in the Lord. ⁹ How can we thank God enough for you in return for all the joy that we feel before our God because of you? ¹⁰ Night and day we pray most earnestly that we may see you face to face and restore whatever is lacking in your faith.^(F)

¹¹ Now may our God and Father himself and our Lord Jesus direct our way to you. ¹² And may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, just as we abound in love for you.^{(G) 13} And may he so strengthen your hearts in holiness that you may be blameless before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints.^[b](H)

A Life Pleasing to God

4 Finally, brothers and sisters, we ask and urge you in the Lord Jesus that, as you learned from us how you ought to live and to please God (as, in fact, you are doing), you should do so more and more.^{(I) 2} For you know what instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus. ³ For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality;^{(J) 4} that each one of you know how to control your own body^[c] in holiness and honor, ⁵ not with lustful passion, like the gentiles who do not know God; ⁶ that no one wrong or exploit a brother or sister in this matter, because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, just as we have already told you beforehand and solemnly warned you.^{(K) 7} For God did not call us to impurity but in holiness. ⁸ Therefore whoever rejects this rejects not human authority but God, who also gives his Holy Spirit to you.

⁹ Now concerning love of the brothers and sisters, you do not need to have anyone write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another,^{(L) 10} and indeed you do love all the brothers and sisters throughout Macedonia. But we urge you, brothers and sisters, to do so more and more, ¹¹ to aspire to live quietly, to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we directed you,^{(M) 12} so that you may behave properly toward outsiders and be dependent on no one.^(N)

The Coming of the Lord

¹³ But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about those who have died,^[d] so that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. ¹⁴ For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have died.^{[e](O) 15} For this we declare to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will by no means precede those who have died.^{[f] 16} For the Lord himself, with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call and with the sound of God’s trumpet, will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first.^{(P) 17} Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will be with the Lord forever.^{(Q) 18} Therefore encourage one another with these words.