For when others speak of us they report the reception we had from you, and how you turned from your idols to God, to be bondservants of the true and ever-living God,

For you, brethren, followed the example of the Churches of God in Christ Jesus which are in Judaea; seeing that you endured the same ill-treatment at the hands of your countrymen, as they did at the hands of the Jews.

Those Jewish persecutors killed both the Lord Jesus and the Prophets, and drove us out of their midst. They are displeasing to God, and are the enemies of all mankind;

for they still try to prevent our preaching to the Gentiles so that they may find salvation. They thus continually fill up the measure of their own sins, and God's anger in its severest form has overtaken them.

that none of you might be unnerved by your present trials: for you yourselves know that they are our appointed lot.

While they are saying "Peace and safety!" then in a moment destruction falls upon them, like birth-pains on a woman who is with child; and escape there is none.