| Chapter 4 |
1 | 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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2 | For ye know what commandments we gave you by the Lord Jesus.
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3 | For this is the will of God, [even] your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication:
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4 | That every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honour;
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5 | Not in the lust of concupiscence, even as the Gentiles which know not God:
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6 | 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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7 | For God hath not called us unto uncleanness, but unto holiness.
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8 | He therefore that despiseth, despiseth not man, but God, who hath also given unto us his holy Spirit.
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9 | 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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10 | 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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11 | 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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12 | That ye may walk honestly toward them that are without, and [that] ye may have lack of nothing.
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13 | 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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14 | 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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15 | 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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16 | 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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17 | 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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18 | Wherefore comfort one another with these words.
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