1 Thessalonians 4:

1 Finally, brothers, we instructed you how to live in order to please God, as in fact you are living. Now we ask you and urge you in the Lord Jesus to do this more and more.
2 For you know what instructions we gave you by the authority of the Lord Jesus.
3 It is God's will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality;
4 that each of you should learn to control his own body in a way that is holy and honorable,
5 not in passionate lust like the heathen, who do not know God;
6 and that in this matter no one should wrong his brother or take advantage of him. The Lord will punish men for all such sins, as we have already told you and warned you.
7 For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life.
8 Therefore, he who rejects this instruction does not reject man but God, who gives you his Holy Spirit.
9 Now about brotherly love we do not need to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love each other.
10 And in fact, you do love all the brothers throughout Macedonia. Yet we urge you, brothers, to do so more and more.
11 Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your hands, just as we told you,
12 so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody.
13 Brothers, we do not want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep, or to grieve like the rest of men, who have no hope.
14 We believe that Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him.
15 According to the Lord's own word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep.
16 For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.
17 After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever.
18 Therefore encourage each other with these words.

1 John 4

1. Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.
2. This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God,
3. but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world.
4. You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.
5. They are from the world and therefore speak from the viewpoint of the world, and the world listens to them.
6. We are from God, and whoever knows God listens to us; but whoever is not from God does not listen to us. This is how we recognize the Spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood.
7. Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.
8. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.
9. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.
10. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
11. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
12. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
13. We know that we live in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit.
14. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.
15. If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God.
16. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him.
17. In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him.
18. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.
19. We love because he first loved us.
20. If anyone says, "I love God," yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.
21. And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.

1 Peter 2

1. Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind.
2. Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation,
3. now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.
4. As you come to him, the living Stone--rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to him--
5. you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
6. For in Scripture it says: "See, I lay a stone in Zion, a chosen and precious cornerstone, and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame."
7. Now to you who believe, this stone is precious. But to those who do not believe, "The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone, "
8. and, "A stone that causes men to stumble and a rock that makes them fall." They stumble because they disobey the message--which is also what they were destined for.
9. But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.
10. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
11. Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul.
12. Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.
13. Submit yourselves for the Lord's sake to every authority instituted among men: whether to the king, as the supreme authority,
14. or to governors, who are sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to commend those who do right.
15. For it is God's will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish men.
16. Live as free men, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as servants of God.
17. Show proper respect to everyone: Love the brotherhood of believers, fear God, honor the king.
18. Slaves, submit yourselves to your masters with all respect, not only to those who are good and considerate, but also to those who are harsh.
19. For it is commendable if a man bears up under the pain of unjust suffering because he is conscious of God.
20. But how is it to your credit if you receive a beating for doing wrong and endure it? But if you suffer for doing good and you endure it, this is commendable before God.
21. To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps.
22. "He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth."
23. When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly.
24. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed.
25. For you were like sheep going astray, but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.

John 19

1. Then Pilate took Jesus and had him flogged.
2. The soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head. They clothed him in a purple robe
3. and went up to him again and again, saying, "Hail, king of the Jews!" And they struck him in the face.
4. Once more Pilate came out and said to the Jews, "Look, I am bringing him out to you to let you know that I find no basis for a charge against him."
5. When Jesus came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe, Pilate said to them, "Here is the man!"
6. As soon as the chief priests and their officials saw him, they shouted, "Crucify! Crucify!" But Pilate answered, "You take him and crucify him. As for me, I find no basis for a charge against him."
7. The Jews insisted, "We have a law, and according to that law he must die, because he claimed to be the Son of God."
8. When Pilate heard this, he was even more afraid,
9. and he went back inside the palace. "Where do you come from?" he asked Jesus, but Jesus gave him no answer.
10. "Do you refuse to speak to me?" Pilate said. "Don't you realize I have power either to free you or to crucify you?"
11. Jesus answered, "You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above. Therefore the one who handed me over to you is guilty of a greater sin."
12. From then on, Pilate tried to set Jesus free, but the Jews kept shouting, "If you let this man go, you are no friend of Caesar. Anyone who claims to be a king opposes Caesar."
13. When Pilate heard this, he brought Jesus out and sat down on the judge's seat at a place known as the Stone Pavement (which in Aramaic is Gabbatha).
14. It was the day of Preparation of Passover Week, about the sixth hour. "Here is your king," Pilate said to the Jews.
15. But they shouted, "Take him away! Take him away! Crucify him!" "Shall I crucify your king?" Pilate asked. "We have no king but Caesar," the chief priests answered.
16. Finally Pilate handed him over to them to be crucified. So the soldiers took charge of Jesus.
17. Carrying his own cross, he went out to the place of the Skull (which in Aramaic is called Golgotha).
18. Here they crucified him, and with him two others--one on each side and Jesus in the middle.
19. Pilate had a notice prepared and fastened to the cross. It read: JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS.
20. Many of the Jews read this sign, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and the sign was written in Aramaic, Latin and Greek.
21. The chief priests of the Jews protested to Pilate, "Do not write `The King of the Jews,´ but that this man claimed to be king of the Jews."
22. Pilate answered, "What I have written, I have written."
23. When the soldiers crucified Jesus, they took his clothes, dividing them into four shares, one for each of them, with the undergarment remaining. This garment was seamless, woven in one piece from top to bottom.
24. "Let's not tear it," they said to one another. "Let's decide by lot who will get it." This happened that the scripture might be fulfilled which said, "They divided my garments among them and cast lots for my clothing." So this is what the soldiers did.
25. Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother, his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene.
26. When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, "Dear woman, here is your son,"
27. and to the disciple, "Here is your mother." From that time on, this disciple took her into his home.
28. Later, knowing that all was now completed, and so that the Scripture would be fulfilled, Jesus said, "I am thirsty."
29. A jar of wine vinegar was there, so they soaked a sponge in it, put the sponge on a stalk of the hyssop plant, and lifted it to Jesus' lips.
30. When he had received the drink, Jesus said, "It is finished." With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.
31. Now it was the day of Preparation, and the next day was to be a special Sabbath. Because the Jews did not want the bodies left on the crosses during the Sabbath, they asked Pilate to have the legs broken and the bodies taken down.
32. The soldiers therefore came and broke the legs of the first man who had been crucified with Jesus, and then those of the other.
33. But when they came to Jesus and found that he was already dead, they did not break his legs.
34. Instead, one of the soldiers pierced Jesus' side with a spear, bringing a sudden flow of blood and water.
35. The man who saw it has given testimony, and his testimony is true. He knows that he tells the truth, and he testifies so that you also may believe.
36. These things happened so that the scripture would be fulfilled: "Not one of his bones will be broken,"
37. and, as another scripture says, "They will look on the one they have pierced."
38. Later, Joseph of Arimathea asked Pilate for the body of Jesus. Now Joseph was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly because he feared the Jews. With Pilate's permission, he came and took the body away.
39. He was accompanied by Nicodemus, the man who earlier had visited Jesus at night. Nicodemus brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds.
40. Taking Jesus' body, the two of them wrapped it, with the spices, in strips of linen. This was in accordance with Jewish burial customs.
41. At the place where Jesus was crucified, there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb, in which no one had ever been laid.
42. Because it was the Jewish day of Preparation and since the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there.

Romans 1:18-32

18The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness,
19since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them.
20For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature--have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.
21For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.
22Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools
23and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.
24Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another.
25They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator--who is forever praised. Amen.
26Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones.
27In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.
28Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done.
29They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips,
30slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents;
31they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless.
32Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.