1 I hope you can put up with me in a little foolishness: but indeed you do put up with me.
2 For I am zealous over you with a godly fervor ardorzeal! For I promised you to one husband, that I might present you as a pure virgin to Christ.
3 But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve in his craftiness, your minds will be lead away from the simplicity and the purity cleanness that is toward Christ.
4 If someone comes and preaches another Jesus, whom we did not preach, or if you receive a different spirit, which you did not receive, or a different good news, which you did not accept, you do well to put up with him.
5 For I do not consider myself inferior to the super apostles.
6 Though I am unskilled in speech, yet I am not in knowledge. We have in every way made this evident to you in all things.
7 Or did I commit a sin in abasing myself that you might be exalted, because I preached to you the good news of God without charge?
8 I robbed other congregations, taking pay from them that I might minister to you.
9 When I was present with you and was in want, I was not a burden on any man. For the brothers, when they came from Macedonia, supplied the measure of my want; and in everything I kept myself from being burdensome to you, and so I will continue to do the same.
10 As the truth of Christ is in me, no man shall stop me from doing this boasting in the regions of Achaia.
11 Why? Is it because I do not love you? God knows I do!
12 But what I do, I will do, that I may cut off occasion from them that desire an occasion; that in whatever matter they boast, they may be found equal with me.
13 For such men are false apostles, deceitful workers, fashioning themselves into apostles of Christ.
14 And no wonder for even Satan fashions himself into an angel of light.
15 It is no great thing therefore if his ministers also fashion themselves as ministers of righteousness, whose end shall be according to their works.
16 I say again, let no man think me foolish. If you do, yet receive me as foolish that I also may boast a little.
17 That which I speak, I speak not after the Lord, but in foolishness, in this confidence of boasting.
18 Seeing that many boast according to the flesh, I will boast also.
19 You being wise tolerate the foolish.
20 You suffer, if a man brings you into bondage, if a man devours you, if a man takes advantage of you, if a man exalts himself, if a man strikes you on the face.
21 I speak concerning reproach, as though we had been weak. If any are bold, I speak foolishly for I am also bold.
22 Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they the seed of Abraham? So am I!
23 Are they ministers of Christ? I speak as a fool. I am more in labors more abundant, beaten beyond number, in prisons more frequent, in deaths often.
24 Of the Jews five times I received forty stripes less one.
25 Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, I suffered shipwreck three times, a night and a day I have spent in the deep.
26 In journeys often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by my own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brothers;
27 In weariness and painfulness, in watching often, in hunger and thirst, in fasting often, in cold and nakedness.
28 Beside those things that are from the outside, that which comes upon me daily, the care of all the congregations.
29 Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is offended, and I do not burn with indignation?
30 If I need to boast, I will boast about the things that concern my infirmities.
31 The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which is blessed forever knows I do not lie.
32 The governor under King Aretas put guards around the city of Damascus to catch me.
33 So I was let down in a basket through an opening in the wall and escaped from him.