Letters to the Churches

for this is the will of God--your sanctification; that ye abstain from the whoredom,

that each of you know his own vessel to possess in sanctification and honour,

not in the affection of desire, as also the nations that were not knowing God,

that no one go beyond and defraud in the matter his brother, because an avenger is the Lord of all these, as also we spake before to you and testified,

for God did not call us on uncleanness, but in sanctification;

he, therefore, who is despising--doth not despise man, but God, who also did give His Holy Spirit to us.

And concerning the brotherly love, ye have no need of my writing to you, for ye yourselves are God-taught to love one another,

for ye do it also to all the brethren who are in all Macedonia; and we call upon you, brethren, to abound still more,

and to study to be quiet, and to do your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we did command you,

that ye may walk becomingly unto those without, and may have lack of nothing.

And I do not wish you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, that ye may not sorrow, as also the rest who have not hope,

for if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, so also God those asleep through Jesus he will bring with him,

for this to you we say in the word of the Lord, that we who are living--who do remain over to the presence of the Lord--may not precede those asleep,

because the Lord himself, in a shout, in the voice of a chief-messenger, and in the trump of God, shall come down from heaven, and the dead in Christ shall rise first,

then we who are living, who are remaining over, together with them shall be caught away in clouds to meet the Lord in air, and so always with the Lord we shall be;

so, then, comfort ye one another in these words.

And concerning the times and the seasons, brethren, ye have no need of my writing to you,

for yourselves have known thoroughly that the day of the Lord as a thief in the night doth so come,

for when they may say, Peace and surety, then sudden destruction doth stand by them, as the travail doth her who is with child, and they shall not escape;

and ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that the day may catch you as a thief;

all ye are sons of light, and sons of day; we are not of night, nor of darkness,

so, then, we may not sleep as also the others, but watch and be sober,

for those sleeping, by night do sleep, and those making themselves drunk, by night are drunken,

and we, being of the day--let us be sober, putting on a breastplate of faith and love, and an helmet--a hope of salvation,

because God did not appoint us to anger, but to the acquiring of salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ,