Sanctification and Love
1 Finally, believers, we ask and admonish you in the Lord Jesus, that you follow theinstructionthat you received from us about how you ought to walk and please God (just as you are actually doing) and that you excel even more and more [pursuing a life of purpose and living in a way that expresses gratitude to God for your salvation].
2 For you know what commandmentsandprecepts we gave you by theauthority ofthe Lord Jesus.
3 For this is the will of God, that you be sanctified [separated and set apart from sin]: that you abstainandback away from sexual immorality;
4 that each of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor [being available for God’s purpose and separated from things profane],
5 not [to be used] in lustful passion, like the Gentiles who do not know Godandare ignorant of His will;
6 and that [in this matter of sexual misconduct] no manshalltransgress and defraud his brother because the Lord is the avenger in all these things, just as we have told you before and solemnly warned you.
7 For God has not called us to impurity, but to holiness [to be dedicated, and set apart by behavior that pleases Him, whether in public or in private].
8 So whoever rejectsanddisregards this is not [merely] rejecting man but the God who gives His Holy Spirit to you [to dwell in you and empower you to overcome temptation].
9 Now concerning brotherly love, you have no need foranyoneto write you, for you have been [personally] taught by God to love one another [that is, to have an unselfish concern for others and to do things for their benefit].
10 For indeed you already do practice it toward all thebelievers throughout Macedonia [by actively displaying your love and concern for them]. But we urge you, brothers and sisters, that you excel [in this matter] more and more,
11 and to make it your ambition to live quietlyandpeacefully, and to mind your own affairs and work with your hands, just as we directed you,
12 so that you will behave properly toward outsiders [exhibiting good character, personal integrity, and moral courage worthy of the respect of the outside world], and be dependent on no oneandin need of nothing [be self-supporting].
Those Who Died in Christ
13 Now we do not want you to be uninformed, believers, about those who are asleep [in death], so that you will not grieve [for them] as the others do who have no hope [beyond this present life].
14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again [as in fact He did], even so God [in this same way–by raising them from the dead] will bring with Him those [believers] who have fallen asleep in Jesus.
15 For we say this to you by the Lord’s [own] word, that we who are still alive and remain until the coming of the Lord, will in no way precede [into His presence] those [believers] who have fallen asleep [in death].
16 For the Lord Himself will come down from heaven with a shout of command, with the voice of thearchangel and with the [blast of the] trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.
17 Then we who are alive and remain [on the earth] willsimultaneouslybe caught up (raptured) together with them [the resurrected ones] in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord!
18 Therefore comfortandencourage one another with these words [concerning our reunion with believers who have died].