So, because I hold a place in this ministry and that because I have had God's mercy shown me, I never give up.

On every side I am ever hard-pressed, but never hemmed in; always perplexed, but never to the point of despair;

always being persecuted, but not deserted; always getting a knockdown, but never a knockout;

So I never give up; instead, although my outer nature is wasting away, my inner nature is constantly renewed from day to day.

Indeed, if I have been doing some boasting of you to him, I have never been ashamed of it; but just as all I said to him was true, so now my boasting before Titus has been shown to be true.

For if I do boast a little too much about my authority, which the Lord gave me for building you up and not for tearing you down, I shall never have to blush for doing so.

But I shall never go too far in my boasting; no, I shall stay within the limits of the sphere which God apportioned me, so as to reach even you.

and when I was with you and needed money, I never burdened a single one of you for a cent, for the brothers came from Macedonia and supplied what I needed. And so I kept myself, as I shall always do, from being a burden to you in any way.

But the truth of Christ in me, this boasting of mine shall never be stopped in the boundaries of Greece.

In what respect, then, were you inferior to the rest of the churches, except for the fact that I, and I only, never received from you any financial support? Please forgive me this wrong.

It is now the third time that I have been ready to come to see you, and I will never ask you for financial support, for it is not your money but you yourselves that I want; for children are not by duty bound to lay up money for their parents, but parents for their children.

But let it be granted, you say, that I never received from you financial support, yet, you say, by being a trickster I cheated you by my cunning.

But I am praying God that you may never do anything wrong, not to show that I am standing the test, but that you should continue doing right, though I should fail to stand the test.