9. For you remember, brethren, our labor and travail: for laboring night and day, because we would not be a burden unto any of you, we preached unto you the gospel of God.
10. You are witnesses, and God also, how holy and just and unblamable was our behavior among you that believe:
11. As you know how we exhorted and encouraged and charged every one of you, as a father does his children,
12. That you would walk worthy of God, who has called you unto his kingdom and glory.
13. For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when you received the word of God which you heard of us, you received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually works also in you that believe.
14. For you, brethren, became followers of the churches of God which in Judaea are in Christ Jesus: for you also have suffered the same things of your own countrymen, even as they have of the Jews:
15. Who both killed the Lord Jesus, and their own prophets, and have persecuted us; and they please not God, and are contrary to all men:
16. Forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they might be saved, to fill up their sins always: for the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost.
17. But we, brethren, being taken from you for a short time in presence, not in heart, endeavored the more abundantly to see your face with great desire.