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[1]And furthermore we beseech you, brethren, and exhort you in the Lord Jesus that ye increase more and more, as ye have received of us, how ye ought to walk, and to please God.
[2]For ye know what commandments we gave you by the Lord Jesus.
[3]For this is the will of God even your sanctification, and that ye should abstain from fornication,
[4]That every one of you should know, how to possess his vessel in holiness and honor,
[5]And not in the lust of concupiscence, even as the Gentiles which know not God:
[6]That no man oppress or defraud his brother in any matter: for the Lord is avenger of all such things, as we also have told you before time and testified.
[7]For God hath not called us unto uncleanness, but unto holiness.
[8]He therefore that despiseth these things, despiseth not man, but God who hath even given you his Holy Spirit.
[9]But as touching brotherly love, ye need not that I write unto you: for ye are taught of God to love one another.
[10]Yea, and that thing verily ye do unto all the brethren, which are throughout all Macedonia: but we beseech you, brethren, that ye increase more and more,
[11]And that ye study to be quiet, and to meddle with your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you,
[12]That ye may behave yourselves honestly toward them that are without, and that nothing be lacking unto you.
[13]Â I would not, brethren, have you ignorant concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not even as other which have no hope.
[14]For if we believe that Jesus is dead, and is risen, even so them which sleep in Jesus, will God bring with him.
[15]For this say we unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which live, and are remaining in the coming of the Lord, shall not prevent them which sleep.
[16]For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, and with the voice of the Archangel, and with the trumpet of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first.
[17]Then shall we which live and remain, be caught up with them also in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.
[18]Wherefore, comfort yourselves one another with these words.
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