⁷ For this reason, brothers and sisters, during all our distress and persecution we have been encouraged about you through your faith.

⁴ who consoles us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to console those who are in any affliction with the consolation with which we ourselves are consoled by God.

Truth and Love

⁴ I was overjoyed to find some of your children walking in the truth, just as we have been commanded by the Father.

Paul’s Charge to Timothy

¹⁰ Now you have observed my teaching, my conduct, my aim in life, my faith, my patience, my love, my steadfastness,^{(A) 11} my persecutions, and my sufferings, the things that happened to me in Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra. What persecutions I endured! Yet the Lord rescued me from all of them.^{(B) 12} Indeed, all who want to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.^(C)

⁹ For I think that God has exhibited us apostles as last of all, as though sentenced to death, because we have become a spectacle to the world, to angels and to humans.^{(A) 10} We are fools for the sake of Christ, but you are sensible people in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You are honored, but we are dishonored.^{(B) 11} To the present hour we are hungry and thirsty, we are naked and beaten and homeless,^{(C) 12} and we grow weary from the work of our own hands. When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure;^{(D) 13} when slandered, we speak kindly. We have become like the rubbish of the world, the dregs of all things, to this very day.

⁸ For we now live, if you continue to stand firm in the Lord. ⁹ How can we thank God enough for you in return for all the joy that we feel before our God because of you?

²³ Are they ministers of Christ? I am talking like a madman—I am a better one: with far greater labors, far more imprisonments, with countless floggings, and often near death.^{(A) 24} Five times I have received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one.^{(B) 25} Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I received a stoning. Three times I was shipwrecked; for a night and a day I was adrift at sea;^{(C) 26} on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from bandits, danger from my own people, danger from gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers and sisters;^{(D) 27} in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, hungry and thirsty, often without food,^[a] cold and naked.^{(E) 28} And, besides other things, I am under daily pressure because of my anxiety for all the churches.

¹³ In this we have found consolation.

In addition to our own consolation, we rejoiced still more at the joy of Titus, because his mind has been set at rest by all of you.^(A)

⁶ But God, who consoles the downcast, consoled us by the arrival of Titus,^{(A) 7} and not only by his arrival but also by the consolation with which he was consoled about you, as he told us of your longing, your mourning, your zeal for me, so that I rejoiced still more.

⁴ Some of them were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, as did a great many of the devout Greeks and not a few of the leading women.^{(A) 5} But the Jews became jealous, and with the help of some ruffians in the marketplaces they formed a mob and set the city in an uproar. While they were searching for Paul and Silas to bring them out to the assembly, they attacked Jason’s house.^{(B) 6} When they could not find them, they dragged Jason and some brothers and sisters before the city authorities, shouting, “These people who have been turning the world upside down have come here also,^{(C) 7} and Jason has entertained them as guests. They are all acting contrary to the decrees of the emperor, saying that there is another king named Jesus.”^{(D) 8} The people and the city officials were disturbed when they heard this, ⁹ and after they had taken bail from Jason and the others, they let them go.

Paul and Silas in Beroea

¹⁰ That very night the brothers and sisters sent Paul and Silas off to Beroea, and when they arrived they went to the Jewish synagogue.^(E)