He died for us so that whether we are alert or asleep we will come to life together with him.

So then we must not sleep as the rest, but must stay alert and sober.

For we wanted to come to you (I, Paul, in fact tried again and again) but Satan thwarted us.

For in fact when we were with you, we were telling you in advance that we would suffer affliction, and so it has happened, as you well know.

Brothers and sisters, pray for us too.

We thank God always for all of you as we mention you constantly in our prayers,

But now Timothy has come to us from you and given us the good news of your faith and love and that you always think of us with affection and long to see us just as we also long to see you!

but just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we declare it, not to please people but God, who examines our hearts.

For how can we thank God enough for you, for all the joy we feel because of you before our God?

Now may God our Father himself and our Lord Jesus direct our way to you.

Then we who are alive, who are left, will be suddenly caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will always be with the Lord.

So when we could bear it no longer, we decided to stay on in Athens alone.

For now we are alive again, if you stand firm in the Lord.

So in all our distress and affliction, we were reassured about you, brothers and sisters, through your faith.

But since we are of the day, we must stay sober by putting on the breastplate of faith and love and as a helmet our hope for salvation.

For God did not destine us for wrath but for gaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.

So when I could bear it no longer, I sent to find out about your faith, for fear that the tempter somehow tempted you and our toil had proven useless.

Finally then, brothers and sisters, we ask you and urge you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received instruction from us about how you must live and please God (as you are in fact living) that you do so more and more.

For we tell you this by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will surely not go ahead of those who have fallen asleep.

But although we suffered earlier and were mistreated in Philippi, as you know, we had the courage in our God to declare to you the gospel of God in spite of much opposition.