| New Living Translation | Berean Study Bible |
| 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. | 1Finally, brothers, we ask and encourage you in the Lord Jesus to live in a way that is pleasing to God, just as you have received from us. This is how you already live, so you should do so all the more. |
| 2For you remember what we taught you by the authority of the Lord Jesus. | 2For you know the instructions we gave you by the authority of the Lord Jesus. |
| 3God’s will is for you to be holy, so stay away from all sexual sin. | 3For it is God’s will that you should be holy: You must abstain from sexual immorality; |
| 4Then each of you will control his own body and live in holiness and honor— | 4each of you must know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, |
| 5not in lustful passion like the pagans who do not know God and his ways. | 5not in lustful passion like the Gentiles who do not know God; |
| 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. | 6and no one should ever violate or exploit his brother in this regard, because the Lord will avenge all such acts, as we have already told you and solemnly warned you. |
| 7God has called us to live holy lives, not impure lives. | 7For God has not called us to impurity, but to holiness. |
| 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. | 8Anyone, then, who rejects this command does not reject man but God, the very One who gives you His Holy Spirit. |
| 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. | 9Now about brotherly love, you do not need anyone to write to you, because you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another. |
| 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. | 10And you are indeed showing this love to all the brothers throughout Macedonia. But we urge you, brothers, to excel more and more |
| 11Make it your goal to live a quiet life, minding your own business and working with your hands, just as we instructed you before. | 11and to aspire to live quietly, to attend to your own matters, and to work with your own hands, as we instructed you. |
| 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 | 12Then you will behave properly toward outsiders, without being dependent on anyone. |
| 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. | 13Brothers, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you will not grieve like the rest, who are without hope. |
| 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. | 14For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, we also believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in Him. |
| 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. | 15By the word of the Lord, we declare to you that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who have fallen asleep. |
| 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. | 16For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a loud command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will be the first to rise. |
| 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. | 17After that, we who are alive and 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. |
| 18So encourage each other with these words. | 18Therefore encourage one another with these words. |
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