¹³ For this reason we thank God without ceasing because, when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you received it not as the word of men, but as it truly is, the word of God, which effectively works also in you who believe. ¹⁴ For you, brothers, became followers of the churches of God, which in Judea are in Christ Jesus. You also have suffered the same things from your own countrymen, as they have from the Jews, ¹⁵ who both killed the Lord Jesus and their own prophets and have persecuted us. They do not please God and are contrary to all men, ¹⁶ forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they might be saved. In this way they are always piling up their sins, but wrath has come upon them to the extreme.