1 Thessalonians 4

¹⁰so that you may walk in a manner worthy of the Lord and may please Him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God,

³We are obligated to thank God for you all the time, brothers, as is fitting, because your faith is growing more and more, and your love for one another is increasing.

¹⁸But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.

¹⁶And do not neglect to do good and to share with others, for with such sacrifices God is pleased.

⁹And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight,

⁵For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith virtue; and to virtue, knowledge;

⁶and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness;

²⁰and teaching them to obey all that I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

¹⁷“Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel. Whenever you hear a word from My mouth, give them a warning from Me.

¹⁰For even while we were with you, we gave you this command: “If anyone is unwilling to work, he shall not eat.”

²¹To those without the law I became like one without the law (though I am not outside the law of God but am under the law of Christ), to win those without the law.

⁶Now we command you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to keep away from any brother who leads an undisciplined life that is not in keeping with the tradition you received from us.

²Consequently, he does not live out his remaining time on earth for human passions, but for the will of God.

²Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God.

²³Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely, and may your entire spirit, soul, and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

⁴Marriage should be honored by all and the marriage bed kept undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterers.

⁵Put to death, therefore, the components of your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires, and greed, which is idolatry.

¹⁷Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is.

⁹But if they cannot control themselves, let them marry. For it is better to marry than to burn with passion.

¹Therefore I urge you, brothers, on account of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.

⁴Marriage should be honored by all and the marriage bed kept undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterers.

⁷Husbands, in the same way, treat your wives with consideration as a delicate vessel, and with honor as fellow heirs of the gracious gift of life, so that your prayers will not be hindered.

¹⁵Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute? Never!

¹⁹I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. Just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to escalating wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness leading to holiness.

⁸Formerly, when you did not know God, you were slaves to those who by nature are not gods.

³⁰Although God overlooked the ignorance of earlier times, He now commands all people everywhere to repent.

³¹For He has set a day when He will judge the world with justice by the Man He has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising Him from the dead.”

¹⁷So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking.

¹⁸They are darkened in their understanding and alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardness of their hearts.

⁵Put to death, therefore, the components of your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires, and greed, which is idolatry.

⁸in blazing fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.

³⁴Sober up as you ought, and stop sinning; for some of you are ignorant of God. I say this to your shame.

⁴Marriage should be honored by all and the marriage bed kept undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterers.

¹⁹Do not avenge yourselves, beloved, but leave room for God’s wrath. For it is written: “Vengeance is Mine; I will repay, says the Lord.”

¹⁷You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his manservant or maidservant, or his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.”

¹⁵You shall not steal.

²⁴He who robs his father or mother, saying, “It is not wrong,” is a companion to the man who destroys.

¹⁸The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness.

⁴⁴For I am the Lord your God; consecrate yourselves, therefore, and be holy, because I am holy. You must not defile yourselves by any creature that crawls along the ground.

⁹But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, to proclaim the virtues of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.

¹⁰Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

⁴For He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless in His presence. In love

¹⁴As obedient children, do not conform to the passions of your former ignorance.

¹⁵But just as He who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do,

²⁹For those God foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brothers.

³⁰And those He predestined, He also called; those He called, He also justified; those He justified, He also glorified.

²“Speak to the whole congregation of Israel and tell them: Be holy because I, the Lord your God, am holy.

²⁴Whoever keeps His commandments remains in God, and God in him. And by this we know that He remains in us: by the Spirit He has given us.

¹⁶Whoever listens to you listens to Me; whoever rejects you rejects Me; and whoever rejects Me rejects the One who sent Me.”

⁷And the Lord said to Samuel, “Listen to the voice of the people in all that they say to you. For it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected Me as their king.

⁴⁸There is a judge for the one who rejects Me and does not receive My words: The word that I have spoken will judge him on the last day.

²¹For no such prophecy was ever brought forth by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

⁹Do not speak to a fool, for he will despise the wisdom of your words.

¹¹This is the message you have heard from the beginning: We should love one another.

¹⁰Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Outdo yourselves in honoring one another.

²³And this is His commandment: that we should believe in the name of His Son, Jesus Christ, and we should love one another just as He commanded us.

³⁴A new commandment I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you also must love one another.

³⁵By this everyone will know that you are My disciples, if you love one another.”

¹Continue in brotherly love.

²¹And we have this commandment from Him: Whoever loves God must love his brother as well.

⁹And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight,

¹²And may the Lord cause you to increase and overflow with love for one another and for everyone else, just as our love for you overflows,

³We are obligated to thank God for you all the time, brothers, as is fitting, because your faith is growing more and more, and your love for one another is increasing.

⁷As a result, you have become an example to all the believers in Macedonia and Achaia.

¹Now, brothers, we want you to know about the grace that God has given the churches of Macedonia.

²In the terrible ordeal they suffered, their abundant joy and deep poverty overflowed into rich generosity.

⁸I am not giving a command, but I am testing the sincerity of your love through the earnestness of others.

⁹For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, so that you through His poverty might become rich.

⁶Better one handful with tranquility than two handfuls with toil and pursuit of the wind.

²⁸He who has been stealing must steal no longer, but must work, doing good with his own hands, that he may have something to share with the one in need.

⁴but from the inner disposition of your heart, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is precious in God’s sight.

¹⁴And our people must also learn to devote themselves to good works in order to meet the pressing needs of others, so that they will not be unfruitful.

¹Better a dry morsel in quietness than a house full of feasting with strife.

²⁶It is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.

⁵Act wisely toward outsiders, redeeming the time.

¹⁷Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Carefully consider what is right in the eyes of everybody.

¹²Conduct yourselves with such honor among the Gentiles that, though they slander you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day He visits us.

⁷Furthermore, he must have a good reputation with outsiders, so that he will not fall into disgrace and into the snare of the devil.

¹³Let us behave decently, as in the daytime, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy.

¹⁶keeping a clear conscience, so that those who slander you may be put to shame by your good behavior in Christ.

¹⁷For it is better, if it is God’s will, to suffer for doing good than for doing evil.

²And many who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake, some to everlasting life, but others to shame and everlasting contempt.

¹⁵By the word of the Lord, we declare to you that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who have fallen asleep.

¹⁰He died for us so that, whether we are awake or asleep, we may live together with Him.

¹⁸Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished.

¹⁹If our hope in Christ is for this life alone, we are to be pitied more than all men.

⁴“Where is the promise of His coming?” they will ask. “Ever since our fathers fell asleep, everything continues as it has from the beginning of creation.”

⁶⁰Falling on his knees, he cried out in a loud voice, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” And when he had said this, he fell asleep.

¹¹And if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit, who lives in you.

²⁰But our citizenship is in heaven, and we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ,

²¹who, by the power that enables Him to subject all things to Himself, will transform our lowly bodies to be like His glorious body.

¹⁹Your dead will live; their bodies will rise. Awake and sing, you who dwell in the dust! For your dew is like the dew of the morning, and the earth will bring forth her dead.

¹³And in keeping with what is written, “I believed, therefore I have spoken,” we who have the same spirit of faith also believe and therefore speak,

¹⁴knowing that the One who raised the Lord Jesus will also raise us with Jesus and present us with you in His presence.

¹³Brothers, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you will not grieve like the rest, who are without hope.

¹⁷After that, we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will always be with the Lord.

⁵¹Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed—

⁵²in an instant, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.

¹⁴knowing that the One who raised the Lord Jesus will also raise us with Jesus and present us with you in His presence.

¹⁹After all, who is our hope, our joy, our crown of boasting, if it is not you yourselves in the presence of our Lord Jesus at His coming?

⁵¹Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed—

⁵²in an instant, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.

⁷Behold, He is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see Him—even those who pierced Him. And all the tribes of the earth will mourn because of Him. So shall it be! Amen.

³⁰At that time the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and all the tribes of the earth will mourn. They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.

³¹And He will send out His angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather His elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other.

²³But each in his own turn: Christ the firstfruits; then at His coming, those who belong to Him.

²⁷For the Son of Man will come in His Father’s glory with His angels, and then He will repay each one according to what he has done.

³¹When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, He will sit on His glorious throne.

⁵²in an instant, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.

¹²And the witnesses heard a loud voice from heaven saying, “Come up here.” And they went up to heaven in a cloud as their enemies watched them.

³And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and welcome you into My presence, so that you also may be where I am.

¹⁵By the word of the Lord, we declare to you that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who have fallen asleep.

⁷Behold, He is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see Him—even those who pierced Him. And all the tribes of the earth will mourn because of Him. So shall it be! Amen.

¹⁴“Sir,” I answered, “you know.” So he replied, “These are the ones who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

¹⁵For this reason, they are before the throne of God and serve Him day and night in His temple; and the One seated on the throne will spread His tabernacle over them.

¹¹Therefore encourage and build one another up, just as you are already doing.

¹⁴And we urge you, brothers, to admonish the unruly, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, and be patient with everyone.

²⁸When these things begin to happen, stand up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”

²⁴And let us consider how to spur one another on to love and good deeds.

²⁵Let us not neglect meeting together, as some have made a habit, but let us encourage one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching.

¹“Comfort, comfort My people,” says your God.

²“Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that her forced labor has been completed; her iniquity has been pardoned. For she has received from the hand of the Lord double for all her sins.”

¹²Therefore strengthen your limp hands and weak knees.