1 Thessalonians 4 Now, brothers, we ask and beg you, in the face of our union with the Lord Jesus, as you once received from us how you ought to live so as to please God -- as indeed you are living -- to continue to live this life better and better.

Williams⁽ⁱ⁾ ¹ Now, brothers, we ask and beg you, in the face of our union with the Lord Jesus, as you once received from us how you ought to live so as to please God -- as indeed you are living -- to continue to live this life better and better. ² For you are aware of the instructions which we gave you by the authority of the Lord Jesus. ³ For it is God's will that you should keep pure in person, that you should practice abstinence from sexual immorality, ⁴ that each man among you should learn to take his own wife out of pure and honorable motives, ⁵ not out of evil passions as the heathen do who do not know God; ⁶ that no one should do wrong and defraud his brother in this matter, because the Lord takes vengeance for all such things, as we told you before and solemnly warned you. ⁷ For God did not call us to a life of immorality, but to one of personal purity. ⁸ So whoever rejects this teaching is rejecting not man but God who continues to put His Spirit in you. ⁹ Now as to brotherly love, you have no need of anyone's writing you, for you have yourselves been taught by God to love one another, ¹⁰ as you are practicing it toward all the brothers all over Macedonia. We beg you, brothers, to continue to live better and better; ¹¹ also keep up your ambition to live quietly, to practice attending to your own business and to work with your own hands, as we directed you, ¹² so that you may live influentially with the outsiders, and not be dependent on anybody. ¹³ Also we do not want you to have any misunderstanding, brothers, about those who are falling asleep, so as to keep you from grieving over them as others do who have no hope. ¹⁴ For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, then through Jesus, God will bring back with Him those who have fallen asleep. ¹⁵ For on the Lord's own authority we say that those of us who may be left behind and are still living when the Lord comes back, will have no advantage at all over those who have fallen asleep. ¹⁶ For the Lord Himself, at the summons sounded by the archangel's call and by God's trumpet, will come down from heaven, and first of all the dead in union with Christ will rise, ¹⁷ then those of us who are still living will be caught up along with them on clouds in the air to meet the Lord, and so we shall be with the Lord forever. ¹⁸ So continue encouraging one another with this truth.