₁There is no need to write to you, brothers and sisters, about the times and occasions when these things will happen. ₂For you yourselves know very well that the Day of the Lord will come as a thief comes at night. ₃When people say, “Everything is quiet and safe,” then suddenly destruction will hit them! It will come as suddenly as the pains that come upon a woman in labour, and people will not escape. ₄But you, brothers and sisters, are not in the darkness, and the Day should not take you by surprise like a thief. ₅All of you are people who belong to the light, who belong to the day. We do not belong to the night or to the darkness. ₆So then, we should not be sleeping like the others; we should be awake and sober. ₇It is at night that people sleep; it is at night that they get drunk. ₈But we belong to the day, and we should be sober. We must wear faith and love as a breastplate, and our hope of salvation as a helmet. ₉God did not choose us to suffer his anger, but to possess salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, ₁₀who died for us in order that we might live together with him, whether we are alive or dead when he comes. ₁₁And so encourage one another and help one another, just as you are now doing.