1 Thessalonians 3:7

⁴who comforts us in all our affliction, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, through the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.

⁴I rejoice greatly that I have found some of your children walking in truth, even as we have been commanded by the Father.

²³Are they servants of Christ? (I speak as one beside himself.) I am more so: in labors more abundantly, in prisons more abundantly, in stripes above measure, and in deaths often. ²⁴Five times I received forty stripes minus one from the Jews. ²⁵Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I suffered shipwreck. I have been a night and a day in the deep. ²⁶I have been in travels often, perils of rivers, perils of robbers, perils from my countrymen, perils from the Gentiles, perils in the city, perils in the wilderness, perils in the sea, perils among false brothers; ²⁷in labor and travail, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, and in cold and nakedness.

²⁸Besides those things that are outside, there is that which presses on me daily: anxiety for all the assemblies.

⁶Nevertheless, he who comforts the lowly, God, comforted us by the coming of Titus, ⁷and not by his coming only, but also by the comfort with which he was comforted in you while he told us of your longing, your mourning, and your zeal for me, so that I rejoiced still more.

⁸For now we live, if you stand fast in the Lord. ⁹For what thanksgiving can we give again to God for you, for all the joy with which we rejoice for your sakes before our God,

⁹For I think that God has displayed us, the apostles, last of all, like men sentenced to death. For we are made a spectacle to the world, both to angels and men. ¹⁰We are fools for Christ’s sake, but you are wise in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You have honor, but we have dishonor. ¹¹Even to this present hour we hunger, thirst, are naked, are beaten, and have no certain dwelling place. ¹²We toil, working with our own hands. When people curse us, we bless. Being persecuted, we endure. ¹³Being defamed, we entreat. We are made as the filth of the world, the dirt wiped off by all, even until now.

⁴Some of them were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas: of the devout Greeks a great multitude, and not a few of the chief women. ⁵But the unpersuaded Jews took along^[+] some wicked men from the marketplace and gathering a crowd, set the city in an uproar. Assaulting the house of Jason, they sought to bring them out to the people. ⁶When they didn’t find them, they dragged Jason and certain brothers^[+] before the rulers of the city, crying, “These who have turned the world upside down have come here also, ⁷whom Jason has received. These all act contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, Jesus!” ⁸The multitude and the rulers of the city were troubled when they heard these things. ⁹When they had taken security from Jason and the rest, they let them go.

¹⁰The brothers immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Beroea. When they arrived, they went into the Jewish synagogue.

¹⁰But you followed my teaching, conduct, purpose, faith, patience, love, steadfastness, ¹¹persecutions, and sufferings—those things that happened to me at Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra. I endured those persecutions. The Lord delivered me out of them all. ¹²Yes, and all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution.

¹³Therefore we have been comforted. In our comfort we rejoiced the more exceedingly for the joy of Titus, because his spirit has been refreshed by you all.