For you recall, brothers and sisters, ¹  our toil and drudgery: By working night and day so as not to impose a burden on any of you, we preached to you the gospel of God.

For you became imitators, brothers and sisters, ¹  of God’s churches in Christ Jesus that are in Judea, because you too suffered the same things from your own countrymen as they in fact did from the Jews,

For we tell you this by the word of the Lord, ¹  that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will surely not go ahead of those who have fallen asleep.