Exhortation to Watch

³⁴ “Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life and that day does not catch you unexpectedly,^(A)

¹⁹ but the cares of the age and the lure of wealth and the desire for other things come in and choke the word, and it yields nothing.

³ You have already spent enough time in doing what the gentiles like to do, living in debauchery, passions, drunkenness, revels, carousing, and lawless idolatry.^{(A) 4} They are surprised that you no longer join them in the same excesses of dissipation, and so they blaspheme.^{[a](B) 5} But they will have to give an accounting to him who stands ready to judge the living and the dead.^{(C) 6} For this is the reason the gospel was proclaimed even to the dead, so that, though they had been judged in the flesh as everyone is judged, they might live in the spirit as God does.

⁷ The end of all things is near;^[b] therefore be serious and discipline yourselves for the sake of your prayers.^(D)

⁴⁵ But if that slave says to himself, ‘My master is delayed in coming,’ and begins to beat the other slaves, men and women, and to eat and drink and get drunk, ⁴⁶ the master of that slave will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour that he does not know and will cut him in pieces^[a] and put him with the unfaithful.

⁴⁰ You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.”^(A)

Final Exhortation and Doxology

¹⁴ Therefore, beloved, while you are waiting for these things, strive to be found by him at peace, without spot or blemish,^(A)

² For you yourselves know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.^{(A) 3} When they say, “There is peace and security,” then sudden destruction will come upon them, as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and there will be no escape!^{(B) 4} But you, brothers and sisters, are not in darkness, for that day to surprise you like a thief;^{(C) 5} for you are all children of light and children of the day; we are not of the night or of darkness. ⁶ So, then, let us not fall asleep as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober,^{(D) 7} for those who sleep sleep at night, and those who are drunk get drunk at night.^{(E) 8} But since we belong to the day, let us be sober and put on the breastplate of faith and love and for a helmet the hope of salvation.^(F)

¹⁰ thieves, the greedy, drunkards, revilers, swindlers—none of these will inherit the kingdom of God.

¹¹ But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother or sister who is sexually immoral or greedy or an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler. Do not even eat with such a one.

³ Remember, then, what you received and heard; obey it and repent. If you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come to you.^(A)