1Thessalonians:4

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* TO conclude , brethren , we beg of you and urge you in the Lord Jesus that , as you learned from us how you ought to live to please God , and are living , you will excel still more . * For you know what directions we have given you through the Lord Jesus . * For this is the will of God : to have you become holy and have you shun unchastity ; * to have each of you know how to take a wife for himself in holiness and honor , * not in the passion of lust , as the Gentiles do who know not God ; * to have no one trespass or take advantage of his brother in this matter ; for the Lord is the punisher of all such , as we have already told you and solemnly warned you . * God has not called us to live in impurity , but in holiness . * Therefore he who disregards this disregards not man , but God , who gives his Holy Spirit to you . * Regarding brotherly love you have no need for me to write to you . For you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another , * and you do the same to all the brethren in the whole of Macedonia . But we urge you , brethren , to excel still further * and to be ambitious to lead a quiet life and to mind each his own business and to work with your hands , as we instructed you . * Thus you will live becomingly in the sight of outsiders and will have need of nothing . * We do not wish you to be ignorant , brethren , regarding those who are sleeping , that you may not sorrow as the rest of men who have no hope . * For since , as we believe , Jesus died and rose , so too God will through Jesus bring with him those who have fallen asleep . * This we tell you by the word of the Lord : We , the living , who have been left until the coming of the Lord , will not have the start of those who have fallen asleep . * For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout , with the voice of an archangel and with God 's trumpet-call , and first the dead in Christ will rise . * Then we , the living , who are left , will be caught up along with them into the clouds to meet the Lord in the air . And thus we shall forever be with the Lord . * So encourage one another with these words .

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