| International Standard Version | Holman Christian Standard Bible |
| 1Now then, brothers, you learned from us how you ought to live and to please God, as in fact you are doing. We ask and encourage you in the Lord to do so even more. | 1Finally then, brothers, we ask and encourage you in the Lord Jesus, that as you have received from us how you must walk and please God--as you are doing--do so even more. |
| 2You know what instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus. | 2For you know what commands we gave you through the Lord Jesus. |
| 3For it is God's will that you be sanctified: You must abstain from sexual immorality. | 3For this is God's will, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality, |
| 4Each of you must know how to control his own body in a holy and honorable manner, | 4so that each of you knows how to control his own body in sanctification and honor, |
| 5not with passion and lust like the gentiles who do not know God. | 5not with lustful desires, like the Gentiles who don't know God. |
| 6Furthermore, you must never take advantage of or exploit a brother in this regard, because the Lord avenges all these things, just as we already told you and warned you. | 6This means one must not transgress against and defraud his brother in this matter, because the Lord is an avenger of all these offenses, as we also previously told and warned you. |
| 7For God did not call us to be impure, but to be holy. | 7For God has not called us to impurity but to sanctification. |
| 8Therefore, whoever rejects this instruction is not rejecting human authority but God, who gives you his Holy Spirit. | 8Therefore, the person who rejects this does not reject man, but God, who also gives you His Holy Spirit. |
| 9Now you do not need anyone to write to you about brotherly love, since you have been taught by God to love each other. | 9About brotherly love: You don't need me to write you because you yourselves are taught by God to love one another. |
| 10In fact, you are showing love to all the brothers throughout Macedonia, but we urge you, brothers, to keep on doing this even more. | 10In fact, you are doing this toward all the brothers in the entire region of Macedonia. But we encourage you, brothers, to do so even more, |
| 11Also, make it your goal to live quietly, to mind your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we instructed you, | 11to seek to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you, |
| 12so that you may win the respect of outsiders, and have need of nothing. | 12so that you may walk properly in the presence of outsiders and not be dependent on anyone. |
| 13But we do not want you to be ignorant, brothers, about those who have died, so that you may not grieve like other people who have no hope. | 13We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, concerning those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve like the rest, who have no hope. |
| 14For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so through Jesus God will bring those who have died with him. | 14Since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, in the same way God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep through Jesus. |
| 15For we declare to you what the Lord has told us to say: We who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who have died. | 15For we say this to you by a revelation from the Lord: We who are still alive at the Lord's coming will certainly have no advantage over those who have fallen asleep. |
| 16With a shout of command, with the archangel's call, and with the sound of God's trumpet, the Lord himself will come down from heaven, and the dead who belong to the Messiah will rise first. | 16For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the archangel's voice, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. |
| 17Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. | 17Then we who are still alive will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air and so we will always be with the Lord. |
| 18So then, encourage one another with these words. | 18Therefore encourage one another with these words. |
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