1 I wish ye would bear with me a little in my folly; and indeed bear with me.
2 For I am jealous over you with a godly jealousy, having espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ.
3 But I fear least as the serpent seduced Eve by his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the purity that is in Christ.
4 For if he, that cometh to you, preacheth another Jesus, whom we have not preached; or if ye receive another Spirit which ye have not received, or another gospel which ye have not embraced, ye might indeed bear with him.
5 For I think I was not inferior to the very chiefest apostles: and if I am unskilled in speech,
6 yet not in knowledge ---but we have been fully manifested among you in all things.
7 Have I committed an offence in humbling myself that ye might be exalted? and in that I have preached the gospel of God to you gratis?
8 I trespassed on other churches, receiving maintenance from them for your service.
9 And when I was present among you, and in want, I was chargeable to no one. For the brethren that came from Macedonia supplied my want: and in every thing I have kept myself from being burdensome to you, and so I will keep myself.
10 As the truth of Christ is in me, this boast shall not be taken from me in the regions of Achaia.
11 Wherefore? because I love you not?
12 God knoweth. But what I do, I will do, that I may cut off occasion from those that desire an occasion of boasting or censure, that in what they boast of they may be found to do even as we do.
13 For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transformed into apostles of Christ.
14 And no wonder: for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.
15 It is therefore no great thing, if his ministers also be transformed into ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works.
16 I say again, let no one think me foolish herein; but if they do, yet bear with my weakness, that I also may boast a little.
17 What I speak I speak not as from the Lord, but as in weakness, in this confidence of boasting.
18 Since many boast in the flesh, I will boast also.
19 For ye bear with fools willingly, being yourselves so wise:
20 ye bear it, even if any one enslave you, if any devour you, if any take your substance, if any be lifted up, yea if any one smite you on the face.
21 I speak of their reproaches, as if we were weak: but whereinsoever any one may be confident (though I speak foolishly) I may be confident too.
22 Are they Hebrews? so am I: are they Israelites? so am I: are they the seed of Abraham?
23 so am I: are they ministers of Christ? (if I may speak as a fool) I am more: in labors more abundant, in stripes far exceeding, in prisons more frequently, and often even in deaths.
24 From the Jews I have five times received forty stripes save one.
25 Thrice I have been beaten with rods, once I was stoned, thrice I have been shipwrecked, and was a night and a day on the deep:
26 in journies often, in perils from rivers, in perils from robbers, in perils from my own nation, in perils from the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the desert, in perils on the sea, in perils among false brethren:
27 in labor and toil, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness: and beside these outward troubles,
28 that which besets me daily, the care of all the churches.
29 Who is infirm, and I am not infirm also? who is offended, and I am not inflamed?
30 If I must boast, I will boast of the things which relate to my infirmity.
31 And the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is blessed for ever, knoweth that I lye not.
32 In Damascus the governor under king Aretas, placed guards about the city to seize me:
33 and I was let down by the wall through a window in a basket, and so escaped his hands.