But I call on God as my soul’s witness, that it was to spare you [pain and discouragement] that I did not come again to Corinth—

This is what I said in my letter, so that I might avoid coming and having my feelings hurt by the very people who might have been expected to make me happy, for I felt sure about you all, that what made me happy would make you all happy.

[We are] trying to avoid this, lest anyone should find fault with us in this abundant gift that is being administered by us.

We have sent with them a brother of ours, whom we have oft times proved diligent in many things, but now much more diligent. The great confidence which I have in you

Are they ministers of Christ? (I speak as a fool) I am more; in labours more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent, in deaths oft.

In journeyings oft, in perils of rivers, in perils of robbers, in perils from my own race, in perils from Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the desert, in perils by the sea, in perils among false brethren,

in toil and hardship, in watchings, oft, in hunger and thirst, in fasting, oft, in cold and nakedness: -