And what mutual agreement has a temple of God with idols? For ye are a temple of the living God, just as God said, I will dwell in them, and will walk among them. And I will be their God, and they will be a people to me.

And it was not as we expected, but first they gave themselves to the Lord and to us through the will of God,

Therefore I thought it necessary to exhort the brothers that they would go ahead to you, and arrange in advance your gift that was earlier announced, for this to be ready this way as a gift and not as an exaction.

For we dare not classify or compare ourselves to some of those who commend themselves. But they, measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves to themselves, do not understand.

And being present with you, and when needy, I was a burden to no man. For the brothers who came from Macedonia, they supplied my need. And in everything I kept, and I will keep myself non-burdensome to you.

But what I do, I also will do, so that I may cut off the opportunity of those who desire an opportunity, that in what they boast, they might appear just as we also.

Are they Hebrews? I too. Are they Israelites? I too. Are they a seed of Abraham? I too.

Are they helpers of Christ? (I speak as being mad) I more: in toils, more abundantly; in stripes, countless; in prisons, more frequently; in deaths often.

lest having come again my God will make me low toward you, and I will bewail many of those who have sinned previously, and who did not repent from the trash and fornication and licentiousness that they committed.