in fact I told myself it was the sentence of death. But that was to make me rely not on myself but on the God who raises the dead;

My proud boast is the testimony of my conscience that holiness and godly sincerity, not worldly cunning but the grace of God, have marked my conduct in the outside world and in particular my relations with you.

For if I pain you, then who is to give me pleasure? None but the very people I am paining!

For I wrote you in sore distress and misery of heart, with many a tear ??not to pain you but to convince you of my love, my special love for you.

you make it obvious that you are a letter of Christ which I have been employed to inscribe, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of the human heart.

and he has further qualified me to be the minister of a new covenant ??a covenant not of written law but of spirit; for the written law kills but the Spirit makes alive.

But we all mirror the glory of the Lord with face unveiled, and so we are being transformed into the same likeness as himself, passing from one glory to another ??for this comes of the Lord the Spirit.

But I possess this treasure in a frail vessel of earth, to show that the transcending power belongs to God, not to myself;

on every side I am harried but not hemmed in, perplexed but not despairing,

persecuted but not abandoned, struck down but not destroyed ??10 wherever I go, I am being killed in the body as Jesus was, so that the life of Jesus may come out in my body:

But since our spirit of faith is the same, therefore ??as it is written I believed and so I spoke ??I too believe and so I speak,

I do sigh within this tent of mine with heavy anxiety ??not that I want to be stripped, no, but to be under the cover of the other, to have my mortal element absorbed by life.

and that he died for all in order to have the living live no longer for themselves but for him who died and rose for them.

I put no obstacle in the path of any, so that my ministry may not be discredited;

amid honour and dishonour, amid evil report and good report, an 'impostor' but honest,

'unknown' but well-known, dying but here I am alive, chastened but not killed,

grieved but always glad, a 'pauper', but the means of wealth to many, without a penny but possessed of all.

But the God who comforts the dejected comforted me by the arrival of Titus.

but I am glad now ??not glad that you were pained but glad that your pain induced you to repent. For you were pained as God meant you to be pained, and so you got no harm from what I did;

So my letter was written to you, not on account of the offender nor for the sake of the injured party, but in order to let you realize before God how seriously you do care for me.

They have done more than I expected; they gave themselves to the Lord, to begin with, and then (for so God willed it) they put themselves at my disposal.

But I will tell you what I think about it; it is to your interest to go on with this enterprise, for you started it last year, you were the first not merely to do anything but to want to do anything.

he has indeed responded to my request, but he is off to you by his own choice, so keen is his interest in you.

I aim at being above reproach not only from God but also from men.

I appeal to you myself by the gentleness and consideration of Christ ??the Paul who is 'humble enough to your face when he is with you, but outspoken enough when he gets away from you.'

I beg of you that when I do come I may not have to speak out and be peremptory; but my mind is made up to tackle certain people who have made up their minds that I move on the low level of the flesh.

I do live in the flesh, but I do not make war as the flesh does;

the weapons of my warfare are not weapons of the flesh, but divinely strong to demolish fortresses ??5 I demolish theories and any rampart thrown up to resist the knowledge of God, I take every project prisoner to make it obey Christ,

But I am not going to seem as if I were 'overawing you with a letter,' so to speak.

My opponent says, 'Paul's letters are weighty and telling, but his personality is weak and his delivery is beneath contempt.'

I wish you would put up with a little 'folly' from me. Do put up with me,

but I am afraid of your thoughts getting seduced from a single devotion to Christ, just as the serpent beguiled Eve with his cunning.

You put up with it all right, when some interloper preaches a second Jesus (not the Jesus I preached), or when you are treated to a Spirit different from the Spirit you once received, and to a different gospel from what I gave you! Why not put up with me?

I am no speaker, perhaps, but knowledge I do possess; I never failed to make myself intelligible to you.

But perhaps I did wrong in taking a humble place that you might have a high one ??I mean, in preaching the gospel of God to you for nothing!

I repeat, no one is to think me a fool; but even so, pray bear with me, fool as I am, that I may have my little boast as well as others!

You put up with fools so readily, you who know so much!

You put up with a man who assumes control of your souls, with a man who spends your money, with a man who dupes you, with a man who gives himself airs, with a man who flies in your face.

I am quite ashamed to say I was not equal to that sort of thing! But let them vaunt as they please, I am equal to them (mind, this is the role of a fool!).

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;

five times have I got forty lashes (all but one) from the Jews,

but I was lowered in a basket from a loophole in the wall, and so managed to escape his clutches.)

There is nothing to be gained by this sort of thing, but as I am obliged to boast, I will go on to visions and revelations of the Lord.

Of an experience like that I am prepared to boast, but not of myself personally ??not except as regards my weaknesses.

but he told me, "It is enough for you to have my grace: it is in weakness that [my] power is fully felt." So I am proud to boast of all my weakness, and thus to have the power of Christ resting on my life.

Now this is playing the fool! But you forced me to it, instead of coming forward yourselves and vouching for me. That was what I deserved; for, 'nobody' as I am, I am not one whit inferior to these precious 'apostles.'

Here am I all ready to pay you my third visit. And I will not be a burden to you; I want yourselves and not your money. Children have not to put money by for their parents; that is what parents do for their children.

But let that pass, you say; I was not a burden to you, no, but I was clever enough to dupe you with my tricks? Was I?

That will prove to you that I am indeed a spokesman of Christ. It is no weak Christ you have to do with, but a Christ of power.

Put yourselves to the proof, not me; test yourselves, to see if you are in the faith. Do you not understand that Christ Jesus is within you? Otherwise you must be failures.

But I trust you will find I am no failure,

and I pray to God that you may not go wrong ??not to prove I am a success, that is not the point, but that you should come right, even if I seemed to be a failure.

(Fail or succeed, I cannot work against the truth but for it!)

I am writing thus to you in absence, so that when I do come I may not have to deal sharply with you; I have the Lord's authority for that, but he gave it to me for building you up, not for demolishing you.