five times have I got forty lashes (all but one) from the Jews, three times I have been beaten by the Romans, once pelted with stones, three times shipwrecked, adrift at sea for a whole night and day; I have been often on my travels, I have been in danger from rivers and robbers, in danger from Jews and Gentiles, through dangers of town and of desert, through dangers on the sea, through dangers among false brothers ??27 through labour and hardship, through many a sleepless night, through hunger and thirst, starving many a time, cold and ill-clad, and all the rest of it. read more.
And then there is the pressing business of each day, the care of all the churches. Who is weak, and I do not feel his weakness? Whose faith is hurt, and I am not aglow with indignation? If there is to be any boasting, I will boast of what I am weak enough to suffer! The God and Father of the Lord Jesus, He who is blessed for ever, He knows I am telling the truth! (At Damascus the ethnarch of king Aretas had patrols out in the city of the Damascenes to arrest me, but I was lowered in a basket from a loophole in the wall, and so managed to escape his clutches.)