You are witnesses, and God also, how holy and righteous and blameless we behaved toward you believers;

For you, brethren, became imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus which are in Judea, for you suffered the same things from your own countrymen as they did from the Jews,

who both killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and also drove us out. They displease God and are hostile to all men,

For you are our glory and joy.

Finally, brethren, we request and exhort you in the Lord Jesus, that as you learned from us how you ought to live and to please God, just as you are doing, you do so more and more.

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

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

Then we who are alive and are left 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.

While people are saying, "Peace and safety," then destruction will come upon them suddenly as labor pains upon a woman with child, and they will not escape.

But you, brethren, are not in darkness so that this day should surprise you like a thief.

For you are all sons of light and sons of the day; we are not of the night or of darkness.

who died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep, we will live together with him.

Therefore encourage one another and build up one another, just as you also are doing.

But we ask you, brethren, to respect those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you,