For this slight, momentary trouble is piling up for me an eternal blessedness beyond all comparison,

obscure, when I am well known, at the point of death, yet here I am alive, punished, but not dead yet,

See how earnest this God-given pain has made you! how eager to clear yourselves, how indignant, how alarmed, how eager to see me, how zealous, how avenging! At every point you have proved that you are clear of this matter.

For they have given to the utmost of their ability, as I can bear them witness, and beyond it,

and I may preach the gospel in the lands beyond you without having to boast over work already done in another's field.