For just as we have more than our share of suffering for the Christ, so also through the Christ we have more than our share of comfort.

Do you say that this is self-recommendation once more? Or do we need, as some do, letters of recommendation to you or from you?

will not the service of the Spirit be far more glorious?

For if the service which pronounces doom had glory, far more glorious still is the service which tells of righteousness.

For if that which was to be abolished came with glory, much more is that which is permanent arrayed in glory.

For everything is for your sakes, in order that grace, being more richly bestowed because of the thanksgivings of the increased number, may more and more promote the glory of God.

Yes, we who are in this tent certainly do sigh under our burdens, for we do not wish to lay aside that with which we are now clothed, but to put on more, so that our mortality may be absorbed in Life.

but also by the fact that he had felt comforted on your account, and by the report which he brought of your eager affection, of your grief, and of your jealousy on my behalf, so that I rejoiced more than ever.

And his strong and tender affection is all the more drawn out towards you when he recalls to mind the obedience which all of you manifested by the timidity and nervous anxiety with which you welcomed him.

And more than that, he is the one who was chosen by the vote of the Churches to travel with us, sharing our commission in the administration of this generous gift to promote the Lord's glory and gratify our own strong desire.

And we send with them our brother, of whose zeal we have had frequent proof in many matters, and who is now more zealous than ever through the strong confidence which he has in you.

If, however, I were to boast more loudly of our Apostolic authority, which the Lord has given us that we may build you up, not pull you down, I should have no reason to feel ashamed.

I use the language of self-disparagement, as though I were admitting our own feebleness. Yet for whatever reason any one is 'courageous' --I speak in mere folly--I also am courageous.

If however I should choose to boast, I should not be a fool for so doing, for I should be speaking the truth. But I forbear, lest any one should be led to estimate me more highly than what his own eyes attest, or more highly than what he hears from my lips.