4:1 Finally then, brothers and sisters, we request and urge you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received instruction from us as to how you ought to ①walk and please God (just as you actually do ②walk), that you excel even more.
▷ ①Or conduct yourselves ②Or conduct yourselves
4:2 For you know what instructions we gave you ①by the authority of the Lord Jesus.
▷ ①Lit through the Lord
4:3 For this is the will of God, your sanctification; that is, that you abstain from sexual immorality;
4:4 that each of you know how to ①possess his own ②vessel in sanctification and honor,
▷ ①Or acquire ②I.e., body; or wife
4:5 not in ①lustful passion, like the Gentiles who do not know God;
▷ ①Lit passion of lust
4:6 and that no one violate the rights and take advantage of his brother or sister in the matter, because the Lord is the avenger in all these things, just as we also told you previously and solemnly warned you.
4:7 For God has not called us for ①impurity, but in sanctification.
▷ ①I.e., moral corruption
4:8 Therefore, the one who rejects this is not rejecting man, but the God who gives His Holy Spirit to you.
4:9 Now as to the love of the brothers and sisters, you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves are taught by God to love one another;
4:10 for indeed you practice it toward all the brothers and sisters who are in all Macedonia. But we urge you, brothers and sisters, to excel even more,
4:11 and to make it your ambition to lead a quiet life and attend to your own business and work with your hands, just as we instructed you,
4:12 so that you will ①behave properly toward outsiders and ②not be in any need.
▷ ①Lit walk ②Lit have need of nothing
4:13 But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about those who ①are asleep, so that you will not grieve as indeed the rest of mankind do, who have no hope.
▷ ①I.e., have died
4:14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose from the dead, so also God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep ①through Jesus.
▷ ①I.e., as believers
4:15 For we say this to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive ①and remain until the coming of the Lord will not precede those who have fallen asleep.
▷ ①Lit who
4:16 For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a ①shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.
▷ ①Or cry of command
4:17 Then we who are alive, who 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.
4:18 Therefore, ①comfort one another with these words.
▷ ①Or encourage