For I am afraid that perhaps when I come I may not find you to be what I desire, and that you may find me to be what you do not desire; that perhaps there may be contention, jealousy, bitter feeling, party spirit, ill-natured talk, backbiting, undue eulogy, unrest;

Lest

I went up in obedience to a revelation of God's will; and I explained to them the Good News which I proclaim among the Gentiles. To the leaders of the Church this explanation was made in private, lest by any means I should be running, or should already have run, in vain.

Remember that it is I Paul who tell you that if you receive circumcision Christ will avail you nothing.

Then Paul and his companions passed through Phrygia and Galatia, having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to proclaim the Message in the province of Asia.

Therefore, my dear brethren, be firm, unmovable, busily occupied at all times in the Lord's work, knowing that your toil is not fruitless in the Lord.

holding out to them a Message of Life. It will then be my glory on the day of Christ that I did not run my race in vain nor toil in vain.

For this reason I also, when I could no longer endure the uncertainty, sent to know the condition of your faith, lest perchance the Tempter might have tempted you and our labour have been lost.

Keep guard over yourselves, so that you may not lose the results of your good deeds, but may receive back a full reward.

General references

But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins.

Why, if I am now rebuilding that structure of sin which I had demolished, I am thereby constituting myself a transgressor;