1 Thessalonians 2:7-16 New King James Version (NKJV)

⁷ But we were gentle among you, just as a nursing mother cherishes her own children. ⁸ So, affectionately longing for you, we were well pleased to impart to you not only the gospel of God, but also our own lives, because you had become dear to us. ⁹ For you remember, brethren, our labor and toil; for laboring night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you, we preached to you the gospel of God.

¹⁰ You are witnesses, and God also, how devoutly and justly and blamelessly we behaved ourselves among you who believe; ¹¹ as you know how we exhorted, and comforted, and ^[a]charged every one of you, as a father does his own children, ¹² that you would walk worthy of God who calls you into His own kingdom and glory.

Their Conversion

¹³ For this reason we also thank God without ceasing, because when you received the word of God which you heard from us, you welcomed it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which also effectivelyworks in you who believe. ¹⁴ For you, brethren, became imitators of the churches of God which are in Judea in Christ Jesus. For you also suffered the same things from your own countrymen, just as they did from the Judeans,¹⁵ who killed both the Lord Jesus and their own prophets, and have persecuted us; and they do not please God and are ^[b]contrary to all men, ¹⁶ forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they may be saved, so as always to fill upthe measure of their sins; but wrath has come upon them to the uttermost.

Footnotes:

1. 1 Thessalonians 2:11 NU, M implored
2. 1 Thessalonians 2:15 hostile

Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.