Whilst ye were made a gazingstock. — Literally, being exposed in the theatre (see the Notes on Acts 19:29; 1 Corinthians 4:9; 1 Corinthians 15:32). Here also it is probable that the word has only a figurative sense.
Whilst ye became companions. — Better, having become sharers with them that thus lived — that lived amidst “reproaches and afflictions.” Not “companions” only had they been, but sharers of the lot of their persecuted brethren, both by sympathy and by voluntary association with their sufferings.