1 Would that ye would bear with me {in} a little folly; but indeed bear with me.
2 For I am jealous as to you with a jealousy {which is} of God; for I have espoused you unto one man, to present {you} a chaste virgin to Christ.
3 But I fear lest by any means, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craft, {so} your thoughts should be corrupted from simplicity as to the Christ.
4 For if indeed he that comes preaches another Jesus, whom we have not preached, or ye get a different Spirit, which ye have not got, or a different glad tidings, which ye have not received, ye might well bear with {it}.
5 For I reckon that in nothing I am behind those who are in surpassing degree apostles.
6 But if {I am} a simple person in speech, yet not in knowledge, but in everything making {the truth} manifest in all things to you.
7 Have I committed sin, abasing myself in order that *ye* might be exalted, because I gratuitously announced to you the glad tidings of God?
8 I spoiled other assemblies, receiving hire for ministry towards you.
9 And being present with you and lacking, I did not lazily burden any one, (for the brethren who came from Macedonia supplied what I lacked,) and in everything I kept myself from being a burden to you, and will keep myself.
10 {The} truth of Christ is in me that this boasting shall not be stopped as to me in the regions of Achaia.
11 Why? because I do not love you? God knows.
12 But what I do, I will also do, that I may cut off the opportunity of those wishing {for} an opportunity, that wherein they boast they may be found even as we.
13 For such {are} false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into apostles of Christ.
14 And {it is} not wonderful, for Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light.
15 It is no great thing therefore if his ministers also transform themselves as ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works.
16 Again I say, Let not any one think me to be a fool; but if otherwise, receive me then even as a fool, that *I* also may boast myself some little.
17 What I speak I do not speak according to {the} Lord, but as in folly, in this confidence of boasting.
18 Since many boast according to flesh, *I* also will boast.
19 For ye bear fools readily, being wise.
20 For ye bear if any one bring you into bondage, if any one devour {you}, if any one get {your money}, if any one exalt himself, if any one beat you on the face.
21 I speak as to dishonour, as though *we* had been weak; but wherein any one is daring, (I speak in folly,) *I* also am daring.
22 Are they Hebrews? *I* also. Are they Israelites? *I* also. Are they seed of Abraham? *I* also.
23 Are they ministers of Christ? (I speak as being beside myself) *I* above measure {so}; in labours exceedingly abundant, in stripes to excess, in prisons exceedingly abundant, in deaths oft.
24 From the Jews five times have I received forty {stripes}, save one.
25 Thrice have I been scourged, once I have been stoned, three times I have suffered shipwreck, a night and day I passed in the deep:
26 in journeyings often, in perils of rivers, in perils of robbers, in perils from {my own} race, in perils from {the} nations, in perils in {the} city, in perils in {the} desert, in perils on {the} sea, in perils among false brethren;
27 in labour and toil, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness.
28 Besides those things that are without, the crowd {of cares} pressing on me daily, the burden of all the assemblies.
29 Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is stumbled, and I burn not?
30 If it is needful to boast, I will boast in the things which concern my infirmity.
31 The God and Father of the Lord Jesus knows-he who is blessed for ever-that I do not lie.
32 In Damascus the ethnarch of Aretas the king kept the city of the Damascenes shut up, wishing to take me;
33 and through a window in a basket I was let down by the wall, and escaped his hands.