Parallel Bible results for "1 thessalonians 4"

1 Thessalonians 4

The Message Bible MSG

1 One final word, friends. We ask you - urge is more like it - that you keep on doing what we told you to do to please God, not in a dogged religious plod, but in a living, spirited dance.

2 You know the guidelines we laid out for you from the Master Jesus.

3 God wants you to live a pure life. Keep yourselves from sexual promiscuity.

4 Learn to appreciate and give dignity to your body,

5 not abusing it, as is so common among those who know nothing of God.

6 Don't run roughshod over the concerns of your brothers and sisters. Their concerns are God's concerns, and he will take care of them. We've warned you about this before.

7 God hasn't invited us into a disorderly, unkempt life but into something holy and beautiful - as beautiful on the inside as the outside.

8 If you disregard this advice, you're not offending your neighbors; you're rejecting God, who is making you a gift of his Holy Spirit.

9 Regarding life together and getting along with each other, you don't need me to tell you what to do. You're God-taught in these matters. Just love one another!

10 You're already good at it; your friends all over the province of Macedonia are the evidence. Keep it up; get better and better at it.

11 Stay calm; mind your own business; do your own job. You've heard all this from us before, but a reminder never hurts.

12 We want you living in a way that will command the respect of outsiders, not lying around sponging off your friends.

13 And regarding the question, friends, that has come up about what happens to those already dead and buried, we don't want you in the dark any longer. First off, you must not carry on over them like people who have nothing to look forward to, as if the grave were the last word.

14 Since Jesus died and broke loose from the grave, God will most certainly bring back to life those who died in Jesus.

15 And then this: We can tell you with complete confidence - we have the Master's word on it - that when the Master comes again to get us, those of us who are still alive will not get a jump on the dead and leave them behind. In actual fact, they'll be ahead of us.

16 The Master himself will give the command. Archangel thunder! God's trumpet blast! He'll come down from heaven and the dead in Christ will rise - they'll go first.

17 Then the rest of us who are still alive at the time will be caught up with them into the clouds to meet the Master.

18 Oh, we'll be walking on air! And then there will be one huge family reunion with the Master. So reassure one another with these words.

New American Standard Bible NAS

1 Finally then, brethren, we request and exhort you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received from us instruction as to how you ought to walk and please God (just as you actually do walk ), that you excel still more.

2 For you know what commandments we gave you by the authority of the Lord Jesus.

3 For this is the will of God, your sanctification; that is, that you abstain from sexual immorality;

4 that each of you know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor,

5 not in lustful passion, like the Gentiles who do not know God;

6 and that no man transgress and defraud his brother in the matter because the Lord is the avenger in all these things, just as we also told you before and solemnly warned you.

7 For God has not called us for the purpose of impurity, but in sanctification.

8 So, he who rejects this is not rejecting man but the God who gives His Holy Spirit to you.

9 Now as to the love of the brethren, you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves are taught by God to love one another;

10 for indeed you do practice it toward all the brethren who are in all Macedonia. But we urge you, brethren, to excel still more,

11 and to make it your ambition to lead a quiet life and attend to your own business and work with your hands, just as we commanded you,

12 so that you will behave properly toward outsiders and not be in any need.

13 But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope.

14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus.

15 For this we say to you by the word of the Lord , that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord , will not precede those who have fallen asleep.

16 For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.

17 Then 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 shall always be with the Lord .

18 Therefore comfort one another with these words.