Read the New Testament in 24 Weeks

Instructions on holy living

4 What remains, my dear family, is for us to ask you, and indeed to urge you in the Lord Jesus, that you should continue more and more to behave in the manner that you received from us as the appropriate way of behaving and of pleasing God. ² You know, of course, what instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus. ³ This is God’s will, you see: he wants you to be holy, to keep well away from fornication. ⁴ Each of you should know how to control your own body in holiness and honor, ⁵ not in the madness of lust like Gentiles who don’t know God. ⁶ Nobody should break this rule, or cheat a fellow Christian in this area; the Lord is the avenger in all such matters, just as we told you before and testified most solemnly. ⁷ For God did not call us to a dirty life, but in holiness. ⁸ Anyone who rejects this, then, is not rejecting a human command, but the God who gives his holy spirit to you.

A life of love

⁹ Now, about charitable concern for the whole family: I don’t really need to write to you, because you yourselves have been taught by God to show loving care for one another. ¹⁰ Indeed, you are doing this for all the Christian family in the whole of Macedonia. But we urge you, my dear family, to make this an even more prominent part of your lives. ¹¹ You should make it your ambition to live peacefully, to mind your own business, and to work with your own hands, just as we commanded you, ¹² so that you may behave in a way which outsiders will respect, and so that none of you may be in financial difficulties.

The Lord’s coming

¹³ Now concerning those who have fallen asleep: we don’t want you to remain in ignorance about them, my dear family. We don’t want you to have the kind of grief that other people do, people who don’t have any hope. ¹⁴ For, you see, if we believe that Jesus died and rose, that’s the way God will also, through Jesus, bring with him those who have fallen asleep.

¹⁵ Let me explain (this is the word of the Lord I’m speaking to you!). We who are alive, who remain until the Lord is present, will not find ourselves ahead of those who fell asleep. ¹⁶ The Lord himself will come down from heaven with a shouted order, with the voice of an archangel and the sound of God’s trumpet. The Messiah’s dead will rise first; ¹⁷ then we who are alive, who are left, will be snatched up with them among the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air. And in this way we shall always be with the Lord. ¹⁸ So comfort each other with these words.

Children of light

5 Now when it comes to specific times and dates, my dear family, you don’t need to have anyone write to you. ² You yourselves know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a midnight robber. ³ When people say, “Peace and security!” then swift ruin will arrive at their doorstep, like the pains that come over a woman in labor, and they won’t have a chance to escape.

⁴ But as for you, my dear family—you are not in darkness. That day won’t surprise you like a robber. ⁵ You are all children of light, children of the day! We don’t belong to the night, or to darkness. ⁶ So, then, let’s not go to sleep, like the others, but let’s keep awake and stay sober.

⁷ People who sleep, you see, sleep at night. People who get drunk get drunk at night. ⁸ But we daytime people should be self-controlled, clothing ourselves with the breastplate of faith and love, and with the helmet of the hope of salvation; ⁹ because the road on which God has placed us leads, not to fury, but to gaining salvation, through our Lord Jesus the Messiah. ¹⁰ He died for us, so that whether we stay awake or go to sleep we should live together with him. ¹¹ So strengthen one another, and build each other up, just as you are doing.

Final exhortations

¹² This, my dear family, is the request we make of you. Take note of those who work among you and exercise leadership over you in the Lord, those who give you instruction. ¹³ Give them the highest possible rank of love because of their work. Live at peace among yourselves.

¹⁴ And we beg you, my dear family: warn those who step out of line; console the downcast; help the weak; be warm-hearted and patient towards everybody. ¹⁵ Make sure nobody pays anyone back evil for evil. Instead, always find the way to do good to one another, and to everybody.

Final blessings and charge

²³ Now may the God of peace himself make you completely holy. May your complete spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus the Messiah. ²⁴ The one who calls you is faithful; he will do it.

²⁵ My dear family, pray for us.

²⁶ Greet the whole family with a holy kiss. ²⁷ I charge you by the Lord to have this letter read to the whole family.

²⁸ The grace of our Lord Jesus the Messiah be with you.