Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

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.