¹ I would that you were bearing with me a little in foolishness; but indeed bear with me.

² For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy. For I have espoused you to one Man, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ.

³ But I fear lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve in his craftiness, so your thoughts should be corrupted from the simplicity due to Christ.

⁴ For if, indeed, the one coming proclaims another Jesus, whom we have not proclaimed, or if you receive another spirit, which you did not receive, or another gospel, which you never accepted, you might well endure these.

⁵ For I judge myself to have come behind the highest apostles in nothing.

⁶ But even if I am unskilled in speech, yet not in knowledge; but in every way I have been clearly revealed to you in all things.

⁷ Or did I commit sin in humbling myself that you might be exalted, because I preached the gospel of God to you without charge?

⁸ I stripped other churches, taking wages for the serving of you.

⁹ And being present with you, and in need, I was not a burden to anyone. For the brothers from Macedonia made up completely my need. And in every way I have kept myself from being burdensome to you, and I will keep myself.

¹⁰ The truth of Christ is in me that this boasting shall not be silenced in me in the regions of Achaia.

¹¹ Why? Because I do not love you? God knows.

¹² But what I do, that I will do, so that I may cut off occasion from those who desire occasion; so that in the thing in which they boast, they may be found even as we.

¹³ For such ones are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ.

¹⁴ Did not even Satan marvelously transform himself into an angel of light?

¹⁵ Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also transform themselves as ministers of righteousness, whose end shall be according to their works.

¹⁶ Again I say, Let no one think me foolish. If otherwise, yet receive me as foolish, so that I may also boast a little.

¹⁷ What I speak, I do not speak according to the Lord, but as in foolishness, in this boldness of boasting.

¹⁸ Since many glory according to the flesh, I also will boast.

¹⁹ For you gladly bear with fools, being wise.

²⁰ For you endure if anyone enslaves you, if anyone devours, if anyone takes from you, if anyone exalts himself, if anyone strikes you in the face.

²¹ I speak according to dishonor, as though we have been weak. But in whatever anyone dares (I speak foolishly), I also dare.

²² Are they Hebrews? I also! Are they Israelites? I also! Are they the seed of Abraham? I also!

²³ Are they ministers of Christ? (I speak as beside myself,) I am more! I have been in labors more abundantly, in stripes above measure, in prisons more, in deaths many times.

²⁴ Five times from the Jews I received forty stripes minus one.

²⁵ Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked. I have spent a night and a day in the deep.

²⁶ I have been in travels often; in dangers from waters; in dangers from robbers; in dangers from my race; in dangers from the heathen; in dangers in the city; in dangers in the wilderness; in dangers on the sea; in dangers among false brothers.

²⁷ I have been in hardship and toil; often in watchings; in hunger and thirst; often in fastings; in cold and nakedness;

²⁸ besides the things outside conspiring against me daily, the care of all the churches.

²⁹ Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is caused to stumble, and I do not burn?

³⁰ If it is right to boast, I will boast, I will boast of the things of my weakness.

³¹ The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is blessed forever, knows that I do not lie.

³² In Damascus the governor under Aretas the king guarded the city of the Damascenes, desiring to lay hold of me.

³³ And I was let down in a basket through a window through the wall, and escaped their hands.