1 Would that ye could bear with me in a little foolishness: but ye indeed bear with me. 2 For I am zealous over you with a zeal of God; for I espoused you to one husband, that I might present you a pure virgin to the Christ. 3 But I fear, lest somehow, as the serpent beguiled Eve in his :craftiness, your :thoughts should be corrupted from the simplicity and the purity that is toward the Christ. 4 For if he who cometh preacheth another Jesus, whom we did not preach, or ye receive a different spirit, which ye did not receive, or a different gospel, which ye did not accept, ye bear well with him. 5 For I reckon that I am behind the chief apostles in nothing. 6 But though rude in :speech, yet am I not in :knowledge; nay, in every way have we made this manifest unto you in †all things. 7 Or did I commit a sin in abasing myself that ye be exalted, because I preached to you the gospel of :God for nought? 8 I robbed other churches, taking wage of them for ministering to you; 9 and when present with you and in want, I was a burden to none; for the brethren, when they came from Macedonia, fully supplied my :want; and in everything I kept myself without burden to you, and will keep. 10 Christ’s truth is in me, that this :glorying in the regions of :Achaia shall not be closed against me. 11 Wherefore? because I love you not? :God knoweth. 12 But what I do, I also will do, that I may cut off the occasion of them that desire occasion that wherein they glory, they be found even as we. 13 For :such are false apostles, deceitful workers, fashioning themselves into apostles of Christ. 14 And no marvel; for the very Satan fashioneth himself into an angel of light. 15 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 one think me foolish; but if ye do, yet as foolish receive me, that I also may glory a little. 17 What I speak, I speak not after the Lord, but as in foolishness, in this :confidence of the glorying. 18 Since many glory after the flesh, I will glory also. 19 For ye bear with the foolish gladly, being wise. 20 For ye bear with one, if he enslave you, if he devoureth, if he taketh you, if he exalteth himself, if he smiteth you on the face. 21 I speak by disparagement, as though WE had been weak. Yet whereinsoever any is bold (I speak in foolishness), I am bold also. 22 Are they Hebrews? I also. Are they Israelites? I also. Are they Abraham’s seed? I also. 23 Are they ministers of Christ? (I speak as one beside himself) I more; in toils more abundantly, in prisons more abundantly, in stripes above measure, in deaths often. 24 Of the Jews I received forty stripes save one five times; 25 was beaten thrice, was stoned once, suffered shipwreck thrice, a night and a day have I †been in the deep; 26 in journeyings often, in perils of rivers, perils of robbers, perils from my race, perils from the nations, perils in city, perils in wilderness, perils at sea, perils among false brethren; 27 in toil and travail, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness. 28 Besides the things without, there is :what presseth upon me :daily, the anxiety for all the churches. 29 Who is weak, and I am not weak? who is stumbled, and I burn not? 30 If I must glory, I will glory of the things of my :weakness. 31 The God and Father of the Lord Jesus, who is blessed unto the ages, knoweth that I lie not. 32 In Damascus the governor under Aretas the king guarded the city of the Damascenes to take me: 33 and through a window was I let down in a basket through the wall, and escaped his :hands.
