Chapter 4

  Furthermore then we beseech you, brethren, and exhort [you] by the Lord Jesus, that as ye have received of us how ye ought to walk and to please God, [so] ye would abound more and more.  

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  For ye know what commandments we gave you by the Lord Jesus.  

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  For this is the will of God, [even] your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication:  

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  That every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honour;  

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  Not in the lust of concupiscence, even as the Gentiles which know not God:  

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  That no [man] go beyond and defraud his brother in [any] matter: because that the Lord [is] the avenger of all such, as we also have forewarned you and testified.  

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  For God hath not called us unto uncleanness, but unto holiness.  

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  He therefore that despiseth, despiseth not man, but God, who hath also given unto us his holy Spirit.  

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  But as touching brotherly love ye need not that I write unto you: for ye yourselves are taught of God to love one another.  

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  And indeed ye do it toward all the brethren which are in all Macedonia: but we beseech you, brethren, that ye increase more and more;  

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  And that ye study to be quiet, and to do your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you;  

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  That ye may walk honestly toward them that are without, and [that] ye may have lack of nothing.  

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  But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope.  

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  For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him.  

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  For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive [and] remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep.  

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  For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:  

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  Then we which are alive [and] remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.  

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  Wherefore comfort one another with these words.  

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