So then let us not be sleeping as do the rest, but let us be watchful and self-controlled.

But let us who are of the day be self-controlled, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for a helmet, the hope of salvation.

so that you will behave properly toward outsiders [exhibiting good character, personal integrity, and moral courage worthy of the respect of the outside world], and be dependent on no one and in need of nothing [be self-supporting].

We never resorted to flattery (you know that), nor to any pretext for self-seeking (God is witness to that);

For this reason, when I could no longer contain my self, I sent to know your faith, lest by any means the tempter had tempted you, and our labor should be in vain.

For you, brothers and sisters, became imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus that are in Judea, because you too suffered the same [kind of] persecution from your own countrymen, as they did from the Jews,