| 1 | I wish you would bear with me in a little foolishness. Do bear with me! |
| 2 | I feel a divine jealousy for you, for I betrothed you to Christ to present you as a pure bride to her one husband. |
| 3 | But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ. |
| 4 | For if some one comes and preaches another Jesus than the one we preached, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you submit to it readily enough. |
| 5 | I think that I am not in the least inferior to these superlative apostles. |
| 6 | Even if I am unskilled in speaking, I am not in knowledge; in every way we have made this plain to you in all things. |
| 7 | Did I commit a sin in abasing myself so that you might be exalted, because I preached God's gospel without cost to you? |
| 8 | I robbed other churches by accepting support from them in order to serve you. |
| 9 | And when I was with you and was in want, I did not burden any one, for my needs were supplied by the brethren who came from Macedo'nia. So I refrained and will refrain from burdening you in any way. |
| 10 | As the truth of Christ is in me, this boast of mine shall not be silenced in the regions of Acha'ia. |
| 11 | And why? Because I do not love you? God knows I do! |
| 12 | And what I do I will continue to do, in order to undermine the claim of those who would like to claim that in their boasted mission they work on the same terms as we do. |
| 13 | For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. |
| 14 | And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. |
| 15 | So it is not strange if his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. Their end will correspond to their deeds. |
| 16 | I repeat, let no one think me foolish; but even if you do, accept me as a fool, so that I too may boast a little. |
| 17 | (What I am saying I say not with the Lord's authority but as a fool, in this boastful confidence; |
| 18 | since many boast of worldly things, I too will boast.) |
| 19 | For you gladly bear with fools, being wise yourselves! |
| 20 | For you bear it if a man makes slaves of you, or preys upon you, or takes advantage of you, or puts on airs, or strikes you in the face. |
| 21 | To my shame, I must say, we were too weak for that! But whatever any one dares to boast of -- I am speaking as a fool -- I also dare to boast of that. |
| 22 | Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they descendants of Abraham? So am I. |
| 23 | Are they servants of Christ? I am a better one -- I am talking like a madman -- with far greater labors, far more imprisonments, with countless beatings, and often near death. |
| 24 | Five times I have received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. |
| 25 | Three times I have been beaten with rods; once I was stoned. Three times I have been shipwrecked; a night and a day I have been adrift at sea; |
| 26 | on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brethren; |
| 27 | in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. |
| 28 | And, apart from other things, there is the daily pressure upon me of my anxiety for all the churches. |
| 29 | Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to fall, and I am not indignant? |
| 30 | If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness. |
| 31 | The God and Father of the Lord Jesus, he who is blessed for ever, knows that I do not lie. |
| 32 | At Damascus, the governor under King Ar'etas guarded the city of Damascus in order to seize me, |
| 33 | but I was let down in a basket through a window in the wall, and escaped his hands. |
| 1 | I must boast; there is nothing to be gained by it, but I will go on to visions and revelations of the Lord. |
| 2 | I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven -- whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows. |
| 3 | And I know that this man was caught up into Paradise -- whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows -- |
| 4 | and he heard things that cannot be told, which man may not utter. |
| 5 | On behalf of this man I will boast, but on my own behalf I will not boast, except of my weaknesses. |
| 6 | Though if I wish to boast, I shall not be a fool, for I shall be speaking the truth. But I refrain from it, so that no one may think more of me than he sees in me or hears from me. |
| 7 | And to keep me from being too elated by the abundance of revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan, to harass me, to keep me from being too elated. |
| 8 | Three times I besought the Lord about this, that it should leave me; |
| 9 | but he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." I will all the more gladly boast of my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. |
| 10 | For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities; for when I am weak, then I am strong. |
| 11 | I have been a fool! You forced me to it, for I ought to have been commended by you. For I was not at all inferior to these superlative apostles, even though I am nothing. |
| 12 | The signs of a true apostle were performed among you in all patience, with signs and wonders and mighty works. |
| 13 | For in what were you less favored than the rest of the churches, except that I myself did not burden you? Forgive me this wrong! |
| 14 | Here for the third time I am ready to come to you. And I will not be a burden, for I seek not what is yours but you; for children ought not to lay up for their parents, but parents for their children. |
| 15 | I will most gladly spend and be spent for your souls. If I love you the more, am I to be loved the less? |
| 16 | But granting that I myself did not burden you, I was crafty, you say, and got the better of you by guile. |
| 17 | Did I take advantage of you through any of those whom I sent to you? |
| 18 | I urged Titus to go, and sent the brother with him. Did Titus take advantage of you? Did we not act in the same spirit? Did we not take the same steps? |
| 19 | Have you been thinking all along that we have been defending ourselves before you? It is in the sight of God that we have been speaking in Christ, and all for your upbuilding, beloved. |
| 20 | For I fear that perhaps I may come and find you not what I wish, and that you may find me not what you wish; that perhaps there may be quarreling, jealousy, anger, selfishness, slander, gossip, conceit, and disorder. |
| 21 | I fear that when I come again my God may humble me before you, and I may have to mourn over many of those who sinned before and have not repented of the impurity, immorality, and licentiousness which they have practiced. |
| 1 | Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother. To the church of God which is at Corinth, with all the saints who are in the whole of Acha'ia: |
| 2 | Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. |
| 3 | Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, |
| 4 | who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. |
| 5 | For as we share abundantly in Christ's sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too. |
| 6 | If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; and if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer. |
| 7 | Our hope for you is unshaken; for we know that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort. |
| 8 | For we do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, of the affliction we experienced in Asia; for we were so utterly, unbearably crushed that we despaired of life itself. |
| 9 | Why, we felt that we had received the sentence of death; but that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead; |
| 10 | he delivered us from so deadly a peril, and he will deliver us; on him we have set our hope that he will deliver us again. |
| 11 | You also must help us by prayer, so that many will give thanks on our behalf for the blessing granted us in answer to many prayers. |
| 12 | For our boast is this, the testimony of our conscience that we have behaved in the world, and still more toward you, with holiness and godly sincerity, not by earthly wisdom but by the grace of God. |
| 13 | For we write you nothing but what you can read and understand; I hope you will understand fully, |
| 14 | as you have understood in part, that you can be proud of us as we can be of you, on the day of the Lord Jesus. |
| 15 | Because I was sure of this, I wanted to come to you first, so that you might have a double pleasure; |
| 16 | I wanted to visit you on my way to Macedo'nia, and to come back to you from Macedo'nia and have you send me on my way to Judea. |
| 17 | Was I vacillating when I wanted to do this? Do I make my plans like a worldly man, ready to say Yes and No at once? |
| 18 | As surely as God is faithful, our word to you has not been Yes and No. |
| 19 | For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, whom we preached among you, Silva'nus and Timothy and I, was not Yes and No; but in him it is always Yes. |
| 20 | For all the promises of God find their Yes in him. That is why we utter the Amen through him, to the glory of God. |
| 21 | But it is God who establishes us with you in Christ, and has commissioned us; |
| 22 | he has put his seal upon us and given us his Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee. |
| 23 | But I call God to witness against me -- it was to spare you that I refrained from coming to Corinth. |
| 24 | Not that we lord it over your faith; we work with you for your joy, for you stand firm in your faith. |
