1 Thessalonians 5:4-11

5:4 But you, brothers and sisters, ¹  are not in the darkness for the day to overtake you like a thief would. 5:5 For you all are sons of the light and sons of the day. We are not of the night nor of the darkness. 5:6 So then we must not sleep as the rest, but must stay alert and sober. 5:7 For those who sleep, sleep at night and those who get drunk are drunk at night. 5:8 But since we are of the day, we must stay sober by putting on the breastplate ²  of faith and love and as a helmet our hope for salvation. ³  5:9 For God did not destine us for wrath ⁴  but for gaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. 5:10 He died ⁵  for us so that whether we are alert or asleep ⁶  we will come to life together with him. 5:11 Therefore encourage one another and build up each other, just as you are in fact doing.

¹ tn Grk “brothers.” See note on the phrase “brothers and sisters” in 1:4.

² sn An allusion to Isa 59:17.

³ tn Grk “hope of salvation” (“a helmet…for salvation” is an allusion to Isa 59:17).

⁴ sn God did not destine us for wrath. In context this refers to the outpouring of God’s wrath on the earth in the day of the Lord (1 Thess 5:2-4).

⁵ tn Grk “the one who died,” describing Jesus Christ (1 Thess 5:9). Because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, a new sentence was started at the beginning of v. 10 in the translation.

⁶ sn The phrases alert or asleep may be understood (1) of moral alertness (living in faith, love, and hope as vv. 6, 8 call for, versus being unresponsive to God) or (2) of physical life and death (whether alive or dead). The first fits better with the context of 5:1-9, while the second returns to the point Paul started with in 4:13-18 (no disadvantage for the believing dead).