¹⁴ I do not write these things to shame you, but to warn and advise you as my beloved children. ¹⁵ For even if you were to have ten thousand teachers [to guide you] in Christ, yet you would not have many fathers [who led you to Christ and assumed responsibility for you], for I became your father in Christ Jesus through the good news [of salvation]. ¹⁶ So I urge you, be imitators of me [just as a child imitates his father].