Now when I came into the Troad to spread there the Good News about the Christ, even though in the Lord's providence a door stood open before me,

And what compact has the Temple of God with idols? For *we* are the Temple of the ever-living God; as God has said, "I will dwell among them, and walk about among them; and will be their God, and it is they who shall be My people."

For however I may have boasted to him about you, I have no reason to feel ashamed; but as we have in all respects spoken the truth to you, so also our boasting to Titus about you has turned out to be the truth.

Exhibit therefore to the Churches a proof of your love, and a justification of our boasting to these brethren about you.

Still I send the brethren in order that in this matter our boast about you may not turn out to have been an idle one; so that, as I have said, you may be ready;

and shall tell the Good News in the districts beyond you, not boasting in another man's sphere about work already done by him.

But I will persist in the same line of conduct in order to cut the ground from under the feet of those who desire an opportunity of getting themselves recognized as being on a level with us in the matters about which they boast.