9 You recall, brothers, our toil and drudgery. Working night and day in order not to burden any of you, we proclaimed to you the gospel of God.
10 You are witnesses, and so is God, how devoutly and justly and blamelessly we behaved toward you believers.
11 As you know, we treated each one of you as a father treats his children,
12 exhorting and encouraging you and insisting that you conduct yourselves as worthy of the God who calls you into his kingdom and glory.
13 And for this reason we too give thanks to God unceasingly, that, in receiving the word of God from hearing us, you received not a human word but, as it truly is, the word of God, which is now at work in you who believe.
14 For you, brothers, have become imitators of the churches of God that are in Judea in Christ Jesus. For you suffer the same things from your compatriots as they did from the Jews,
15 who killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets and persecuted us; they do not please God, and are opposed to everyone,