We beg you, brothers, to practice showing respect to those who labor among you, who are your leaders in the Lord's work, and who advise you;

I did not eat any man's bread without paying for it, but with toil and hard labor I worked night and day, in order not to be a burden to any of you.

When a woman is in labor, she is in pain, for her time has come, but when the baby is born, she forgets her pain because of her joy that a human being has been born into the world.

So, my dear brothers, continue to be firm, incapable of being moved, always letting the cup run over in the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the service of the Lord is never thrown away.

But if to keep on living here means fruit from my labor, I cannot tell which to choose.

to hold up the message of life. That will give me ground for boasting on the day of Christ, because neither my career nor my labor has been a failure.

You remember, brothers, our hard labor and toil. We kept up our habit of working night and day, in order not to be a burden to any of you when we preached to you.

That was why, when I could bear it no longer, I sent to learn about your faith, for I was afraid that the tempter had tempted you and our labor might be lost.

I have sent you to reap a harvest which you have not labored to make. Other men have labored, but you have reaped the results of their labors."

I beg you to put yourselves under leaders like these, and under anyone who cooperates with you, and labors hard.

in floggings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, and hunger;

I am not going too far in my boasting, and actually boasting of other men's labors, but I am cherishing the hope that your faith may so continue to grow that through you my work within my sphere may be so enlarged as to run over,

Are they ministers of Christ? So am I. I am talking like a man that has gone crazy -- as such I am superior! -- serving Him with labors greater by far, with far more imprisonments, with floggings vastly worse, and often at the point of death.

I am beginning to fear that I have bestowed my labors on you for nothing.