The Coming of the Lord: Hope for the Dead and Call to Watchfulness
1 Thessalonians 4:13-5:11
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Chapter 4
13But we do not want you to be ignorant, brothers, concerning those who are sleeping, so that you do not grieve just as the rest also do, those who have no hope.14For if we believe that Jesus died and rose, so also God will bring with him those who fell asleep through Jesus.15For we say this to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who remain until the Parousia of the Lord, will in no way precede those who have fallen asleep.16because the Lord will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first,17then we the living, those who are left, will together with them be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and in this way we will always be with the Lord.18So exhort one another in these words.
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Chapter 5
1Now concerning the times and the epochs, brothers, you have no need for anything to be written to you.2For you yourselves know exactly that the day of the Lord comes like a thief in the night.3Whenever they say, "Peace and safety," then sudden destruction will come upon them like birth pains on the one who has it in the womb, and they shall by no means escape.4But you, brothers, are not in darkness, so that the day might overtake you as a thief.5For you are all sons of light and sons of day. We are not of night nor of darkness.6Therefore let us not sleep as do the rest, but let us watch and be sober.7For those who sleep do so at night, and those who get drunk do so at night.8But we, being of the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love and the helmet of the hope of salvation.9because God did not appoint us for wrath but for acquisition of salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ,10of the one who died for us so that whether we watch or sleep, we might live together with him.11Therefore exhort one another and build one another up, even as you also do.