We had just been through ill-treatment and insults at Philippi, as you remember, but, in the face of great opposition, we took courage by the help of our God, and told you God's good news.

We for our part constantly thank God for another reason too??ecause when you received God's message from our lips, you welcomed it not as the message of men but as the message of God, as it really is, which does its work in the hearts of you believers.

That was the kind of affection we had for you, which made us ready to share with you not only God's good news but our own lives too, because you were so dear to us.

Now, brothers, we ask and entreat you, in the name of the Lord Jesus, to live as you learned from us that you must live, to please God??s indeed you are doing, only do it more and more.

try to keep us from speaking to the heathen so that they may be saved, so as always to fill up the measure of their sins. But God's wrath has overtaken them at last!