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?

But as for me Paul, I entreat you by the gentleness and self-forgetfulness of Christ--I who when among you have not an imposing personal presence, but when absent am fearlessly outspoken in dealing with you.

For we have not the 'courage' to rank ourselves among, or compare ourselves with, certain persons distinguished by their self-commendation. Yet they are not wise, measuring themselves, as they do, by one another and comparing themselves with one another.

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.

Nay, we had, as we still have, the sentence of death within our own selves, in order that our confidence may repose, not on ourselves, but on God who raised the dead to life.

They not only did this, as we had expected, but first of all in obedience to God's will they gave their own selves to the Lord and to us.

Test yourselves to discover whether you are true believers: put your own selves under examination. Or do you not know that Jesus Christ is within you, unless you are insincere?