for this to you we say in the word of the Lord, that we who are living -- who do remain over to the presence of the Lord -- may not precede those asleep,
because the Lord himself, in a shout, in the voice of a chief-messenger, and in the trump of God, shall come down from heaven, and the dead in Christ shall rise first,
And I heard a voice out of the heaven saying to me, `Write: Happy are the dead who in the Lord are dying from this time!' `Yes, (saith the Spirit,) That they may rest from their labours -- and their works do follow them!'