<p>4:4 <i>Let each one of you take a wife for himself in sanctification and honour</i>- This command suggests that some of them, perhaps the younger ones, were using the temple prostitutes (see on :3). A wife / woman &quot;for himself&quot; suggests they needed to stop having relations with multiple women and have just one woman, their wife. And yet we recall the warm praise which Paul has heaped upon the Thessalonians, for their faith and spirituality, even saying this before God (1:2,3). Yet he did this being fully aware of their weakness. In 2 Thess. 1:3 he states that the love of each and every one of them was growing and he rejoiced in this; and yet in 2 Thess. 3 he clearly is aware that all was far from well with the spiritual state of some of them. The AV gives &quot;possess his vessel&quot; for &quot;take a wife&quot;, and the reference in that case would be to knowing how to use our bodies. This would then make better sense of :5.</p>