1. If only you could bear with me a little in my folly: and indeed do bear with me.
2. For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy: for I have betrothed you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ.
3. But I fear that by some means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety, so your minds will be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.
4. For if he who comes preaches another Jesus, whom we have not preached, or if you receive another spirit, which you have not received, or another gospel, which you have not accepted, you might well put up with it.
5. For I suppose I was not at all behind the very chief apostles.
6. But though I am unskilled in speech, yet not in knowledge; but we have been thoroughly made known among you in all things.
7. Have I committed an offense in abasing myself that you might be exalted, because I have preached to you the gospel of God freely?
8. I robbed other churches, taking wages from them, to do you service.
9. And when I was present with you, and lacked, I was chargeable to no one: for that which was lacking to me the brethren who came from Macedonia supplied: and in all things I have kept myself from being burdensome to you, and so will I keep myself.
10. As the truth of Christ is in me, no one shall deprive me of this boasting in the regions of Achaia.
11. Why? Because I do not love you? God knows.
12. But what I do, that I will do, that I may remove opportunity from those who desire opportunity; that in the things they find glory in, they may be found even as we.
13. For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ.
14. And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.
15. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also are transformed to appear as ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works.
16. I say again, Let no one think me a fool; if otherwise, yet as a fool receive me, that I may boast myself a little.
17. That which I speak, I do not speak it according to the Lord, but as if foolishly, in this confidence of boasting.
18. Seeing that many glory in the flesh, I will glory also.
19. For you permit fools gladly, seeing that you yourselves are wise.
20. For you allow it, if a man brings you into bondage, if a man devours you, if a man takes from 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. However wherever any is bold, (I speak foolishly,) I am bold also.
22. Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they the descendents of Abraham? So am I.
23. Are they ministers of Christ? (I speak as a fool) I am more; in labors more abundant, in stripes beyond measure, in prisons more frequent, in danger of death often.
24. From the Jews five times I received forty stripes save one.
25. Three times was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, three times I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I have been in the deep;
26. In journeys often, in peril from rivers, in peril from robbers, in peril from my own countrymen, in peril from the heathen, in peril in the city, in peril in the wilderness, in peril in the sea, in peril among false brethren;
27. In weariness and painfulness, in sleeplessness often, in hunger and thirst, in fasting often, in cold and nakedness.
28. Besides those things that are external, that which comes upon me daily, the anxiety for all the churches.
29. Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is offended, and I am not angry?
30. If I must glory, I will glory in the things which concern my weaknesses.
31. The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is blessed for evermore, knows that I do not lie.
32. In Damascus the governor under Aretas the king guarded the city of the Damascenes with a garrison, desiring to arrest me:
33. And through a window in a basket was I let down by the wall, and escaped his hands.
| 
