for we are persuaded, my brethren, that you are the peculiar objects of divine favour;

And you are satisfied, my brethren, that our address to you was not fallacious:

you are witnesses, and God is so too, how holy, how just and irreproachable our behaviour was to you, who believe.

the very men who have persecuted the Lord Jesus, and the prophets even to death; who have persecuted us; they who are regardless of pleasing the deity, and are enemies to all mankind;

for ye are our glory and our joy.

none of you might be stagger'd by these persecutions: for you know that we are destin'd to suffer.

for one thing I have in charge to tell you from the Lord, that we, who shall be found still alive at the coming of the Lord, shall not get the advance of those that are dead:

but you, my brethren, are too well inform'd to be surpriz'd by that day, as by a thief.

you inherit the advantages of meridian light: we are not involv'd in the obscurity of night.

they that are sober take their rest in the night, whilst they that are sots, are drunk in the night:

be thankful to God for every thing, for so christians are oblig'd to be.