Although I have been boasting a little to him about you, you did not put me to shame; but, just as every thing we had said to you was true, so our boasting to Titus about you has also proved to be the truth.

Let such a man be assured of this--that our words in our letters show us to be, when absent, just what our deeds will show us to be, when present.

Yet I fear that it may turn out that, just as the Serpent by his craftiness deceived Eve, so your minds may have lost the loyalty and purity due from you to the Christ.

What I am doing now I shall continue to do, that I may cut away the ground from under those who are wishing for some ground for attacking me, so that as regards the thing of which they boast they may appear in their true characters, just as we do.

I have said it, and I say it again before I come, just as if I were with you on my second visit, though for the moment absent, I say to those who have been long sinning, as well as to all others--that if I come again, I shall spare no one.