Would that ye would bear with me in a little folly; but indeed bear with me.
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.
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.
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.
For I reckon that in nothing I am behind those who are in surpassing degree apostles.
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.
Have I committed sin, abasing myself in order that ye might be exalted, because I gratuitously announced to you the glad tidings of God?
I spoiled other assemblies, receiving hire for ministry towards you.
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.
The truth of Christ is in me that this boasting shall not be stopped as to me in the regions of Achaia.
Why? because I do not love you? God knows.
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.
For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into apostles of Christ.
And it is not wonderful, for Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light.
It is no great thing therefore if his ministers also transform themselves as ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works.
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.
What I speak I do not speak according to the Lord, but as in folly, in this confidence of boasting.
Since many boast according to flesh, I also will boast.
For ye bear fools readily, being wise.
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.
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.
Are they Hebrews? I also. Are they Israelites? I also. Are they seed of Abraham? I also.
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.
From the Jews five times have I received forty stripes, save one.
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:
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;
in labour and toil, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness.
Besides those things that are without, the crowd of cares pressing on me daily, the burden of all the assemblies.
Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is stumbled, and I burn not?
If it is needful to boast, I will boast in the things which concern my infirmity.
The God and Father of the Lord Jesus knows he who is blessed for ever that I do not lie.
In Damascus the ethnarch of Aretas the king kept the city of the Damascenes shut up, wishing to take me;
and through a window in a basket I was let down by the wall, and escaped his hands.