| International Standard Version | NET Bible |
| 1Now then, brothers, you learned from us how you ought to live and to please God, as in fact you are doing. We ask and encourage you in the Lord to do so even more. | 1Finally then, brothers and sisters, we ask you and urge you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received instruction from us about how you must live and please God (as you are in fact living) that you do so more and more. |
| 2You know what instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus. | 2For you know what commands we gave you through the Lord Jesus. |
| 3For it is God's will that you be sanctified: You must abstain from sexual immorality. | 3For this is God's will: that you become holy, that you keep away from sexual immorality, |
| 4Each of you must know how to control his own body in a holy and honorable manner, | 4that each of you know how to possess his own body in holiness and honor, |
| 5not with passion and lust like the gentiles who do not know God. | 5not in lustful passion like the Gentiles who do not know God. |
| 6Furthermore, you must never take advantage of or exploit a brother in this regard, because the Lord avenges all these things, just as we already told you and warned you. | 6In this matter no one should violate the rights of his brother or take advantage of him, because the Lord is the avenger in all these cases, as we also told you earlier and warned you solemnly. |
| 7For God did not call us to be impure, but to be holy. | 7For God did not call us to impurity but in holiness. |
| 8Therefore, whoever rejects this instruction is not rejecting human authority but God, who gives you his Holy Spirit. | 8Consequently the one who rejects this is not rejecting human authority but God, who gives his Holy Spirit to you. |
| 9Now you do not need anyone to write to you about brotherly love, since you have been taught by God to love each other. | 9Now on the topic of brotherly love you have no need for anyone to write you, for you yourselves are taught by God to love one another. |
| 10In fact, you are showing love to all the brothers throughout Macedonia, but we urge you, brothers, to keep on doing this even more. | 10And indeed you are practicing it toward all the brothers and sisters in all of Macedonia. But we urge you, brothers and sisters, to do so more and more, |
| 11Also, make it your goal to live quietly, to mind your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we instructed you, | 11to aspire to lead a quiet life, to attend to your own business, and to work with your hands, as we commanded you. |
| 12so that you may win the respect of outsiders, and have need of nothing. | 12In this way you will live a decent life before outsiders and not be in need. |
| 13But we do not want you to be ignorant, brothers, about those who have died, so that you may not grieve like other people who have no hope. | 13Now we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve like the rest who have no hope. |
| 14For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so through Jesus God will bring those who have died with him. | 14For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, so also we believe that God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep as Christians. |
| 15For we declare to you what the Lord has told us to say: We who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who have died. | 15For we tell you this by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will surely not go ahead of those who have fallen asleep. |
| 16With a shout of command, with the archangel's call, and with the sound of God's trumpet, the Lord himself will come down from heaven, and the dead who belong to the Messiah will rise first. | 16For the Lord himself will come down from heaven with a shout of command, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. |
| 17Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. | 17Then we who are alive, who are left, will be suddenly caught up together 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. | 18Therefore encourage one another with these words. |
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