1 I wish you would put up with a little 'folly' from me. Do put up with me,
2 for I feel a divine jealousy on your behalf; I betrothed you as a chaste maiden to present you to your one husband Christ,
3 but I am afraid of your thoughts getting seduced from a single devotion to Christ, just as the serpent beguiled Eve with his cunning.
4 You put up with it all right, when some interloper preaches a second Jesus (not the Jesus I preached), or when you are treated to a Spirit different from the Spirit you once received, and to a different gospel from what I gave you! Why not put up with me?
5 I hold I am not one whit inferior to these precious 'apostles'!
6 I am no speaker, perhaps, but knowledge I do possess; I never failed to make myself intelligible to you.
7 But perhaps I did wrong in taking a humble place that you might have a high one ??I mean, in preaching the gospel of God to you for nothing!
8 I made a levy on other churches, I took pay from them so as to minister to you;
9 even when I ran short, during my stay with you, I was no encumbrance to anybody, for the brothers who came from Macedonia supplied my wants. Thus I kept myself, as I intend to keep myself, from being a burden to you in any way.
10 By the truth of Christ within me, I am going to make this my pride and boast unchecked throughout the regions of Achaia!
11 Why? Because I do not love you? God knows I do.
12 No, I intend to go on as I am doing, in order to checkmate those who would fain make out that in the apostolate of which they boast they work on the same terms as I do.
13 'Apostles'? They are spurious apostles, false workmen ??they are masquerading as 'apostles of Christ.'
14 No wonder they do, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light.
15 So it is no surprise if his ministers also masquerade as ministers of righteousness. Their doom will answer to their deeds.
16 I repeat, no one is to think me a fool; but even so, pray bear with me, fool as I am, that I may have my little boast as well as others!
17 (What I am now going to say is not inspired by the Lord: I am in the role of a 'fool,' now, on this business of boasting.
18 Since many boast on the score of the flesh, I will do the same.)
19 You put up with fools so readily, you who know so much!
20 You put up with a man who assumes control of your souls, with a man who spends your money, with a man who dupes you, with a man who gives himself airs, with a man who flies in your face.
21 I am quite ashamed to say I was not equal to that sort of thing! But let them vaunt as they please, I am equal to them (mind, this is the role of a fool!).
22 Are they Hebrews? so am I. Israelites? so am I. Descended from Abraham? so am I.
23 Ministers of Christ? yes perhaps, but not as much as I am (I am mad to talk like this!), with all my labours, with all my lashes, with all my time in prison ??a record longer far than theirs. I have been often at the point of death;
24 five times have I got forty lashes (all but one) from the Jews,
25 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;
26 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.
28 And then there is the pressing business of each day, the care of all the churches.
29 Who is weak, and I do not feel his weakness? Whose faith is hurt, and I am not aglow with indignation?
30 If there is to be any boasting, I will boast of what I am weak enough to suffer!
31 The God and Father of the Lord Jesus, He who is blessed for ever, He knows I am telling the truth!
32 (At Damascus the ethnarch of king Aretas had patrols out in the city of the Damascenes to arrest me,
33 but I was lowered in a basket from a loophole in the wall, and so managed to escape his clutches.)