Yes, I felt within my very self the sentence of death, to keep me from depending on myself instead of God who raises the dead.

for this is to me matter of glorying, the testimony of my conscience, that without artifice, and with religious sincerity, not by worldly wisdom, but by God's favourable assistance I have behaved my self towards all men, but more particularly to you.

But I purposed in my self, I would not be the occasion of any uneasiness to you when I come again.

Am I falling into self-recommendation again? Do I, like some people, need letters of recommendation to you or from you?

renouncing all secret dishonesty, and void of all artifice, I deliver the word of God unadulterated, and recommend my self by urging the truth home to every man's conscience, as in the presence of God.

Therefore we do not become discouraged [spiritless, disappointed, or afraid]. Though our outer self is [progressively] wasting away, yet our inner self is being [progressively] renewed day by day.

And He who did work us to this self-same thing is God, who also did give to us the earnest of the Spirit;

So, since I know what the fear of God can do, I am trying to win men. My inner self is perfectly known to God, and I hope, to your consciences too.

that is, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world to him self, not charging their offenses to them, and he has committed to us the word of reconciliation.

And God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that in everything, always having all self-sufficiency, you may abound to every good work;

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.

I have not indeed the audacity to class myself among, or compare myself with, certain of the self-commenders; yet they are not wise in measuring themselves by one another and in comparing themselves with one another.

For a man is proved worthy, not by his self-commendation, but when he is commended by the Lord.

I say it again, let no man think me vain; but if they do, yet as such, bear with me, that I too may applaud my self a little.

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.

For I am afraid that perhaps, when I come, I may find that you are not what I want you to be, and, on the other hand, that you may find that I am what you do not want me to be. I am afraid that I may find quarreling, jealousy, ill-feeling, rivalry, slandering, back-biting, self-assertion, and disorder.