⁵¹ Listen very carefully, I tell you a mystery [a secret truth decreed by God and previously hidden, but now revealed]; we will not all sleep [in death], but we will all be [completely] changed [wondrously transformed], ⁵² in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at [the sound of] the last trumpet call. For a trumpet will sound, and the dead [who believed in Christ] will be raised imperishable, and we will be [completely] changed [wondrously transformed]. ⁵³ For this perishable [part of us] must put on the imperishable [nature], and this mortal [part of us that is capable of dying] must put on immortality [which is freedom from death].

¹⁶ For the Lord Himself will come down from heaven with a shout of command, with the voice of the ^[a]archangel and with the [blast of the] trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.