For my boast is what my conscience tells me, that my relations to the world and still more to you have been marked by pure motives and godly sincerity, not by worldly shrewdness but by the favor of God.

As surely as God can be relied on, there has been no equivocation about our message to you.

The Son of God, Christ Jesus, whom we proclaimed among you, Silvanus, Timothy, and I, you have not found wavering between "Yes" and "No." With him it has always been "Yes,"

This is what I said in my letter, so that I might avoid coming and having my feelings hurt by the very people who might have been expected to make me happy, for I felt sure about you all, that what made me happy would make you all happy.

When you forgive a man, I forgive him too. For anything I had to forgive has been forgiven on your account, and as in the very presence of Christ,

For the pain that God approves results in a repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regrets; but the world's pain results in death.

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.

That is why I am so comforted. With all my own comfort, I was still more overjoyed at the gladness of Titus, for his mind has been set at rest by you all.

I must tell you, brothers, how the favor of God has been shown in the churches of Macedonia,

What is more, he has been appointed by the churches to travel with me in the interests of this generous undertaking, which I am superintending to honor the Lord and to show our readiness to help.

for I know how willing you are to help in it; I boast of you for it to the people in Macedonia, telling them that Greece has been ready since last year, and your enthusiasm has been a stimulus to most of them.

Five times I have been given one less than forty lashes, by the Jews.

I have been beaten three times by the Romans, I have been stoned once, I have been shipwrecked three times, a night and a day I have been adrift at sea;

I have been making a fool of myself, but you forced me to do it, when you ought to have been expressing your approval of me. For I am not a bit inferior to your superfine apostles, even if I am nobody!

Here it is the third time that I have been ready to come to see you, and I do not intend to be a burden to you now; for it is not your money but yourselves that I want; for children are not expected to lay up money for their parents, but parents for their children.

Have you been supposing all along that it is before you I have been defending myself? It is in the sight of God and as a follower of Christ that I have been speaking. But it is all to do you good, dear friends,