Are we starting to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, like some [false teachers], letters of recommendation to you or from you? [No!]

And we have given up the secret things of shame, not walking in false ways, and not making use of the word of God with deceit; but by the revelation of what is true, as before God, we have the approval of every man's sense of right and wrong.

and this I say, not to commend myself again unto you, but to give you an occasion of glorying on my account, that you may confront those who make a false show of glorying.

destroying [false] reasonings and every height which is exalted against the knowledge of God, and subjecting every thought to the obedience of Christ,

Yet I consider myself in no way inferior to the [so-called] super-apostles.

For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ.

In journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren;

Now I have become foolish; you have forced me [by questioning my apostleship]. Actually I should have been commended by you [instead of being treated disdainfully], for I was not inferior to those super-apostles, even if I am nobody.

But let it be so, that I was not a trouble to you myself; but (someone may say) being false, I took you with deceit.