| NET Bible | New Living Translation |
| 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. | 1Finally, dear brothers and sisters, we urge you in the name of the Lord Jesus to live in a way that pleases God, as we have taught you. You live this way already, and we encourage you to do so even more. |
| 2For you know what commands we gave you through the Lord Jesus. | 2For you remember what we taught you by the authority of the Lord Jesus. |
| 3For this is God's will: that you become holy, that you keep away from sexual immorality, | 3God’s will is for you to be holy, so stay away from all sexual sin. |
| 4that each of you know how to possess his own body in holiness and honor, | 4Then each of you will control his own body and live in holiness and honor— |
| 5not in lustful passion like the Gentiles who do not know God. | 5not in lustful passion like the pagans who do not know God and his ways. |
| 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. | 6Never harm or cheat a fellow believer in this matter by violating his wife, for the Lord avenges all such sins, as we have solemnly warned you before. |
| 7For God did not call us to impurity but in holiness. | 7God has called us to live holy lives, not impure lives. |
| 8Consequently the one who rejects this is not rejecting human authority but God, who gives his Holy Spirit to you. | 8Therefore, anyone who refuses to live by these rules is not disobeying human teaching but is rejecting God, who gives his Holy Spirit to you. |
| 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. | 9But we don’t need to write to you about the importance of loving each other, for God himself has taught you to love one another. |
| 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, | 10Indeed, you already show your love for all the believers throughout Macedonia. Even so, dear brothers and sisters, we urge you to love them even more. |
| 11to aspire to lead a quiet life, to attend to your own business, and to work with your hands, as we commanded you. | 11Make it your goal to live a quiet life, minding your own business and working with your hands, just as we instructed you before. |
| 12In this way you will live a decent life before outsiders and not be in need. | 12Then people who are not believers will respect the way you live, and you will not need to depend on others. The Hope of the Resurrection |
| 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. | 13And now, dear brothers and sisters, we want you to know what will happen to the believers who have died so you will not grieve like people who have no hope. |
| 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. | 14For since we believe that Jesus died and was raised to life again, we also believe that when Jesus returns, God will bring back with him the believers 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. | 15We tell you this directly from the Lord: We who are still living when the Lord returns will not meet him ahead of those who have died. |
| 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. | 16For the Lord himself will come down from heaven with a commanding shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet call of God. First, the believers who have died will rise from their graves. |
| 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. | 17Then, together with them, we who are still alive and remain on the earth will be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. Then we will be with the Lord forever. |
| 18Therefore encourage one another with these words. | 18So encourage each other with these words. |
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