4
(4:1 - 12)
1-2 Yes, you know those words we told you. Those words came from Jesus our Boss. We taught you what you should be like in order to please God. You listened to us. Now we are telling you from the Lord Jesus: Keep on doing the right thing according to our words. 3 God wants you to be like this. You should become like him, without evil. You all should stay only with your own spouses only, don’t desire the spouse of another. No indeed! 4-5 Some people are very ignorant of God, they are always wanting other people’s women. Don't be like those unbelievers. No! Amongst your people you (pl.) should stay (each) only with your own spouse. You should look after him/her without anger/fighting and be kind to him/her. 6 Maybe one of you might steal the wife of another man. God will be angry with that thief. God is the one who will punish those who do like that. We already seriously told you these words. 7 God told us Christians to stay without badness like him, we should not be like others who are sexually promiscuous. 8 Some disregard/ignore this word. Those disregarders are ignoring us, they are ignoring God himself also. God is the one who gave you his Good Spirit, because of that (emphatic) you should not ignore him. 9 Yes, God has already told you to care for each other well/with kindness. We won't write in this letter about that, you already understand about that. 10 Yes, you are taking care of the Christians well in your country Macedonia. Now we tell you, keep on doing like that. 11 Don't go to the camps of others to criticise, a troubler of other people. As a result of that sort of thing they might get upset and angry. Always work hard. That's exactly what we have already told you before. 12 You should work for your own food money. If you do that you won't go begging to other people for theirs. People will say about you that you live in a good and appropriate way.
(4:13 - 5:11)
[?? Should we at some stage standardise on the English words “Christians” or “Believers”, or is it better to retain the “yijalmarta jinakatarrangu”.]
13 Yes, listen to this word about believers who have already died. We want you to know about them. Then you will not be continually sad for them. Some people are ignorant of God, because of that they stay sad continually. Do not be sad like them. Those ones do not trust in the Boss Jesus, and they are very sad about those who have died. 14 Jesus died. After that God made him alive again. We all believe that word. Therefore we believe this other word also: later God will send Jesus from the sky to get the believers that have already died. The Boss Jesus will take them, the believers, to the Father. 15-16 We tell you this word from Jesus our(incl) Boss. He will return from the sky to get all the believers, he will take us to the Father's country. He will take the ones who are still alive and the ones who have died also. Those ones who are still alive will not go up ahead to the sky first. No! It will be like this: Our Boss himself will come down from the sky and he will call out loudly to the believers who have already died. A big angel will also blow through a big thing, thay call it a trumpet. With that thing he will blow hard. Those who are dead will hear that trumpet and the Boss Jesus when he calls. As a result of that those dead ones will become alive. 17 After that those other believers who are still alive he will cause to go upwards. He will gather us all together up in the clouds, the ones who have already died and the others also. In that very way we will all be with Jesus our Boss for ever. 18 Therefore you should continually make each other brave and happy with this word.