1 Thessalonians 3–4

3^*Finally, we could not bear it any longer. So we decided to stay on alone in Athens ²while we sent Timothy, our brother who works with us for God in preaching the Good News about Christ. We sent him to strengthen you and help your faith, ³so that none of you should turn back because of these persecutions. You yourselves know that such persecutions are part of God’s will for us. ⁴For while we were still with you, we told you beforehand that we were going to be persecuted; and as you well know, that is exactly what happened. ⁵That is why I had to send Timothy. I could not bear it any longer, so I sent him to find out about your faith. Surely it could not be that the Devil had tempted you and all our work had been for nothing!

^6*Now Timothy has come back, and he has brought us the welcome news about your faith and love. He has told us that you always think well of us and that you want to see us just as much as we want to see you. ⁷So, in all our trouble and suffering we have been encouraged about you, brothers and sisters. It was your faith that encouraged us, ⁸because now we really live if you stand firm in your life in union with the Lord. ⁹Now we can give thanks to our God for you. We thank him for the joy we have in his presence because of you. ¹⁰Day and night we ask him with all our heart to let us see you personally and supply what is needed in your faith.

¹¹May our God and Father himself and our Lord Jesus prepare the way for us to come to you! ¹²May the Lord make your love for one another and for all people grow more and more and become as great as our love for you. ¹³In this way he will strengthen you, and you will be perfect and holy in the presence of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus comes with all who belong to him.^b

A Life that Pleases God

4Finally, our brothers and sisters, you learnt from us how you should live in order to please God. This is, of course, how you have been living. And now we beg and urge you in the name of the Lord Jesus to do even more. ²For you know the instructions we gave you by the authority of the Lord Jesus. ³God wants you to be holy and completely free from sexual immorality. ⁴Each of you men should know how to live with his wife^c in a holy and honourable way, ⁵not with a lustful desire, like the heathen who do not know God. ⁶In this matter, then, no man should do wrong to his fellow-Christian or take advantage of him. We have told you this before, and we strongly warned you that the Lord will punish those who do that. ⁷God did not call us to live in immorality, but in holiness. ⁸So then, whoever rejects this teaching is not rejecting a human being, but God, who gives you his Holy Spirit.

⁹There is no need to write to you about love for your fellow-believers. You yourselves have been taught by God how you should love one another. ¹⁰And you have, in fact, behaved like this towards all the brothers and sisters in all Macedonia. So we beg you, our brothers and sisters, to do even more. ¹¹Make it your aim to live a quiet life, to mind your own business, and to earn your own living, just as we told you before. ¹²In this way you will win the respect of those who are not believers, and you will not have to depend on anyone for what you need.

The Lord’s Coming

¹³Our brothers and sisters, we want you to know the truth about those who have died, so that you will not be sad, as are those who have no hope. ¹⁴We believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will take back with Jesus those who have died believing in him.

^15*What we are teaching you now is the Lord’s teaching: we who are alive on the day the Lord comes will not go ahead of those who have died. ^16*There will be the shout of command, the archangel’s voice, the sound of God’s trumpet, and the Lord himself will come down from heaven. Those who have died believing in Christ will rise to life first; ^17*then we who are living at that time will be gathered up along with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will always be with the Lord. ¹⁸So then, encourage one another with these words.