2 Corinthians 11:1-15 - Paul Defends His Apostleship
1 I wish you would put up with a little folly from me. Do put up with it! 2 I feel a divine jealousy about you, for I betrothed you to Christ, to present you as a pure bride to her one husband. 3 But I am afraid that just as the serpent by his cunning deceived Eve, your thoughts will be led astray from their single-hearted fidelity to Christ. 4 For when somebody comes along and preaches another Jesus than the one I preached, or you receive a different spirit from the one you received or a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it well enough!
5 For I think that I am not in the least inferior to these superfine apostles of yours. 6 Even if I have no particular gifts in speaking, I am not wanting in knowledge. Why, I have always made that perfectly clear in my dealings with you. 7 Do you think that I did wrong in degrading myself to uplift you, because I preached God's good news to you without any compensation? 8 I robbed other churches, letting them pay me so that I could work for you! 9 And when I was with you and wanted money, I did not burden any of you, for when the brothers came from Macedonia they supplied what I needed. So I kept myself, as I shall always do, from being a burden to you in any way. 10 By the truth of Christ that is in me, this boast of mine shall not be silenced anywhere in Greece. 11 And why? Because I do not love you? God knows I do.
12 And I shall go on doing as I do, so as to cut the ground from under those who want to make out that in their boasted apostleship they work on the same terms that I do. 13 Such men are sham apostles, dishonest workmen, masquerading as apostles of Christ. 14 And no wonder, for even Satan himself masquerades as a shining angel. 15 So it is nothing strange if his servants also masquerade as servants of uprightness. But their doom will fit their actions.