we are confident, I say, and pleased rather to be absent from the body and present with the Lord.

(for he says, I have listened to thee in an accepted time, and I have helped thee in a day of salvation: behold, now is the well-accepted time; behold, now the day of salvation:)

lest haply, if Macedonians come with me and find you unprepared, we, that we say not ye, may be put to shame in this confidence.

because his letters, he says, are weighty and strong, but his presence in the body weak, and his speech naught.

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.

For if I shall desire to boast, I shall not be a fool; for I will say the truth; but I forbear, lest any one should think as to me above what he sees me to be, or whatever he may hear of me.

I have declared beforehand, and I say beforehand as present the second time, and now absent, to those that have sinned before, and to all the rest, that if I come again I will not spare.