You are witnesses, and so is God, how devoutly and uprightly and blamelessly we behaved toward you believers;

For you, brethren, became imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus that are in Judea, for you also endured the same sufferings at the hands of your own countrymen, even as they did from the Jews,

who both killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and drove us out. They are not pleasing to God, but hostile to all men,

For you are our glory and joy.

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;

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

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.

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.

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.

While they are saying, “Peace and safety!” then destruction will come upon them suddenly like labor pains upon a woman with child, and they will not escape.

But you, brethren, are not in darkness, that the day would overtake you like a thief;

for you are all sons of light and sons of day. We are not of night nor of darkness;

But since we are of the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet, the hope of salvation.

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.