For you have the memory, my brothers, of our trouble and care; how, working night and day, so that we might not be a trouble to any of you, we gave you the good news of God.
So let us go to Jordan, and let everyone get to work cutting boards, and we will make a living-place for ourselves there. And he said to them, Go, then.
But earlier rulers who were before me made the people responsible for their upkeep, and took from them bread and wine at the rate of forty shekels of silver; and even their servants were lords over the people: but I did not do so, because of the fear of God.
Now the food made ready for one day was one ox and six fat sheep, as well as fowls; and once in ten days a store of all sorts of wine: but all the same, I did not take the food to which the ruler had a right, because the people were crushed under a hard yoke.
A Song. A Psalm. Of the sons of Korah. To the chief music-maker; put to Mahalath Leannoth. Maschil. Of Heman the Ezrahite. O Lord, God of my salvation, I have been crying to you for help by day and by night:
If only my head was a stream of waters and my eyes fountains of weeping, so that I might go on weeping day and night for the dead of the daughter of my people!
But I put no value on my life, if only at the end of it I may see the work complete which was given to me by the Lord Jesus, to be a witness of the good news of the grace of God.
To be a servant of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles, doing the work of a priest in the good news of God, so that the offering of the Gentiles might be pleasing to God, being made holy by the Holy Spirit.
By signs and wonders, in the power of the Holy Spirit; so that from Jerusalem and round about as far as Illyricum I have given all the good news of Christ;
But I have not made use of any of these things: and I am not writing this in the hope that it may be so for me: for it would be better for me to undergo death, than for any man to make this pride of mine of no effect.
What then is my reward? This, that when I am giving the good news, I may give it without payment, not making use of my rights as a preacher of the good news.
And when I was present with you, and was in need, I let no man be responsible for me; for the brothers, when they came from Macedonia, gave me whatever was needed; and in everything I kept myself from being a trouble to you, and I will go on doing so.
But after we had first undergone much pain and been cruelly attacked as you saw, at Philippi, by the help of God we gave you the good news without fear, though everything was against us.
And this is the purpose of all our work and our fighting, because our hope is in the living God, who is the Saviour of all men, and specially of those who have faith.
I give praise to God, whose servant I have been, with a heart free from sin, from the time of my fathers, because in my prayers at all times the thought of you is with me, night and day