Moreover I call God for a record upon my soul, that to spare you I came not as yet unto Corinth.

For we are not as many, which corrupt the word of God: but as of sincerity, but as of God, in the sight of God speak we in Christ.

Do we begin again to commend ourselves? or do we need, as some, commendatory letters to you, or commendatory from you?

Not as if we were able by ourselves to do anything for which we might take the credit; but our power comes from God;

And not as Moses, which put a vail over his face, that the children of Israel could not stedfastly look to the end of that which is abolished:

And this they did, not as we hoped, but first gave their own selves to the Lord, and unto us by the will of God.

I am not saying this as a command [to dictate to you], but to prove, by [pointing out] the enthusiasm of others, the sincerity of your love as well.

For if a forwardness lie before, according as any has, it is acceptable, not as he has not.

Therefore I thought it necessary to exhort the brethren, that they would go before unto you, and make up beforehand your bounty, whereof ye had notice before, that the same might be ready, as a matter of bounty, and not as of covetousness.

We, however, not as to the things without measure, will boast ourselves, but, according to the measure of the limit which God apportioned unto us, as a measure - to reach as far as even you!

For we do not, as not reaching to you, overstretch ourselves, (for we have come to you also in the glad tidings of the Christ;)

Not, as to the things without measure, boasting ourselves in other men's toils, but having, hope - your faith, growing - among you, to be enlarged, according to our limit for something beyond, -

what I say, I say it not as an apostle, but as it were to indulge my vanity in this matter of boasting.

Ministers of Christ? yes perhaps, but not as much as I am (I am mad to talk like this!), with all my labours, with all my lashes, with all my time in prison ??a record longer far than theirs. I have been often at the point of death;

Are you thinking all this time that I am defending myself to you? It is in the very presence of God and as one who is in union with Christ that I am speaking. And it is all for building you up, beloved, for I am apprehensive that, somehow or other, when I come I shall find you not as I want to find you, and that you may find me not as you want to find me.

For I am afraid that perhaps when I come I may find you not to be as I wish, and that you may find me not as you wish—that perhaps there may be strife, jealousy, angry tempers, disputes, slander, gossip, arrogance and disorder;

Try your own selves, whether ye are in the faith; prove your own selves. Or know ye not as to your own selves, that Jesus Christ is in you? unless indeed ye be reprobate.