1 Thessalonians 2:9–16

⁹Surely you remember, brothers and sisters, our toil and hardship; we worked^v night and day in order not to be a burden to anyone^w while we preached the gospel of God to you. ¹⁰You are witnesses,^x and so is God,^y of how holy,^z righteous and blameless we were among you who believed. ¹¹For you know that we dealt with each of you as a father deals with his own children,^{a 12}encouraging, comforting and urging you to live lives worthy^b of God, who calls^c you into his kingdom and glory.

¹³And we also thank God continually^d because, when you received the word of God,^e which you heard from us, you accepted it not as a human word, but as it actually is, the word of God, which is indeed at work in you who believe. ¹⁴For you, brothers and sisters, became imitators^f of God’s churches in Judea,^g which are in Christ Jesus: You suffered from your own people^h the same things those churches suffered from the Jews ¹⁵who killed the Lord Jesusⁱ and the prophets^j and also drove us out. They displease God and are hostile to everyone ¹⁶in their effort to keep us from speaking to the Gentiles^k so that they may be saved. In this way they always heap up their sins to the limit.^l The wrath of God has come upon them at last.^b