¹Finally, then, brothers, we ask you and encourage you in the Lord Jesus, to abound yet more in the way you received from us about how you need to walk and how to please God. ²For you know what instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus. ³For this is the will of God – your sanctification – that you abstain from fornication, ⁴that each of you should know how to control his own vessel in sanctification and honour, ⁵not in passions of lust, as for their part the Gentiles, who do not know God, do, ⁶not to transgress or defraud one's brother in business, for the Lord is an avenger concerning all these things, as indeed we have told you before and have testified solemnly. ⁷For God did not call us with a view to uncleanness, but to sanctification. ⁸Consequently, he who is disregardful is not disregarding man, but God, who also gave his holy spirit to you. ⁹But concerning brotherly love, you do not need me to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another, ¹⁰for in fact you do this to all the brothers who are in the whole of Macedonia. And we encourage you, brothers, to abound more still, ¹¹and to be particular about living quietly and attending to your own affairs and working with your own hands, as we have commanded you, ¹²so that you behave decently towards those outside and so that you do not lack anything. ¹³But we do not wish you to be ignorant brothers, concerning those who have fallen asleep, so that you do not grieve as the rest do, who have no hope. ¹⁴For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, so also will God bring back those who have fallen asleep, through Jesus, with him. ¹⁵For we say this to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive – who survive up to the coming of the Lord – will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep, ¹⁶because the Lord himself will descend from heaven on command, at the voice of the archangel and with the sound of the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first, ¹⁷then we who are alive, who survive, will be caught up together with them in clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and in this way we will always be with the Lord. ¹⁸So encourage one another with these words.