Would that ye might bear with me in some little folly; but even bear with me.
For I am jealous as to you with a jealousy of God; for I betrothed you to one husband to present a chaste virgin to Christ.
But I fear lest by any means, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craft, your thoughts should be corrupted from the simplicity that is toward Christ.
For if indeed he that cometh preacheth another Jesus whom ye preached not, or ye receive a different Spirit whom ye received not, or a different gospel which ye accepted not, ye might well bear with [it].
For I reckon that I am in nothing come short of those surpassing apostles;
but if even ordinary in speech, yet not in knowledge, but in every [way we were] made manifest in all things towards you.
What! did I commit sin in humbling myself that ye might be exalted, because I gratuitously announced the gospel of God to you?
Other assemblies I spoiled, receiving hire for service toward you.
And when present with you and in want, I have not been a burden to anyone (for my want the brethren on coming from Macedonia supplied); and in everything unburdensome to you I kept and will keep myself.
There is Christ’s truth in me that this boasting shall not be stopped unto me in the quarters of Achaia.
Wherefore? Because I love you not? God knoweth.
But what I do I will also do that I may cut off the occasion of those desiring an occasion, that wherein they boast they may be found even as we.
For such [are] false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into apostles of Christ:
and no wonder, for Satan himself transformeth himself into an angel of light:
[it is] no great thing then if his servants also transform themselves as servants of righteousness, whose end shall be according to their works.
Again I say, let not one think me to be a fool; but if otherwise, even as a fool receive me, that I also may boast some little.
What I speak, I speak not according to the Lord but as in folly, in this confidence of boasting.
Since many boast according to flesh, I also will boast.
For ye bear fools pleasantly, being wise.
For ye bear if one bring you into bondage, if one devour you, if one receive, if one exalt himself, if one beat you on the face.
By way of dishonour I speak, as though we had been weak; but wherein anyone is bold (I speak in folly) I also am bold.
Are they Hebrews? I too. Are they Israelites? I too. Are they Abraham’s seed? I too.
Are they ministers of Christ? (Beside myself I speak) I above measure; in labours very abundantly, in prisons very abundantly, in stripes exceedingly, in deaths often.
From Jews five times I received forty [stripes] save one;
thrice was I beaten with rods, once I was stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I have been in the deep;
by wayfarings often, by dangers of rivers, by dangers of robbers, by dangers from countrymen, by dangers from Gentiles, by dangers in town, by dangers in desert, by dangers at sea, by dangers among false brethren, by toil and trouble;
in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness.
Apart from things without, my pressing care day by day, the concern for all the assemblies.
Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is stumbled, and I burn not?
If I must boast, I will boast in the matters of my infirmity.
The God and Father of the Lord Jesus, he that is blessed forever, knoweth that I lie not.
In Damascus the ethnarch of Aretas the king garrisoned the Damascenes’ city to seize me;
and through a window I was let down in a basket by the wall and escaped his hands.