Read the Bible

¹ Would that ye could bear with me in a little foolishness: nay indeed bear with me. ² For I am jealous over you with a godly jealousy: for I espoused you to one husband, that I might present you [as] a pure virgin to Christ. ³ But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve in his craftiness, your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity and the purity that is toward Christ. ⁴ For if he that cometh preacheth another Jesus, whom we did not preach, or [if] ye receive a different spirit, which ye did not receive, or a different gospel, which ye did not accept, ye do well to bear with [him].

⁵ For I reckon that I am not a whit behind the very chiefest apostles. ⁶ But though [I be] rude in speech, yet [am I] not in knowledge; nay, in everything we have made [it] manifest among all men to you–ward. ⁷ Or did I commit a sin in abasing myself that ye might be exalted, because I preached to you the gospel of God for nought? ⁸ I robbed other churches, taking wages [of them] that I might minister unto you; ⁹ and when I was present with you and was in want, I was not a burden on any man; for the brethren, when they came from Macedonia, supplied the measure of my want; and in everything I kept myself from being burdensome unto you, and [so] will I keep [myself]. ¹⁰ As the truth of Christ is in me, no man shall stop me of this glorying in the regions of Achaia. ¹¹ Wherefore? because I love you not? God knoweth. ¹² But what I do, that I will do, that I may cut off occasion from them which desire an occasion; that wherein they glory, they may be found even as we. ¹³ For such men are false apostles, deceitful workers, fashioning themselves into apostles of Christ. ¹⁴ And no marvel; for even Satan fashioneth himself into an angel of light. ¹⁵ It is no great thing therefore if his ministers also fashion themselves as ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works.

¹⁶ I say again, Let no man think me foolish; but if [ye do], yet as foolish receive me, that I also may glory a little. ¹⁷ That which I speak, I speak not after the Lord, but as in foolishness, in this confidence of glorying. ¹⁸ Seeing that many glory after the flesh, I will glory also. ¹⁹ For ye bear with the foolish gladly, being wise [yourselves]. ²⁰ For ye bear with a man, if he bringeth you into bondage, if he devoureth you, if he taketh you [captive], if he exalteth himself, if he smiteth you on the face. ²¹ I speak by way of disparagement, as though we had been weak. Yet whereinsoever any is bold (I speak in foolishness), I am bold also.

²² Are they Hebrews? so am I. Are they Israelites? so am I. Are they the seed of Abraham? so am I. ²³ Are they ministers of Christ? (I speak as one beside himself) I more; in labours more abundantly, in prisons more abundantly, in stripes above measure, in deaths oft. ²⁴ Of the Jews five times received I forty [stripes] save one. ²⁵ Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day have I been in the deep; ²⁶ [in] journeyings often, [in] perils of rivers, [in] perils of robbers, [in] perils from [my] countrymen, [in] perils from the Gentiles, [in] perils in the city, [in] perils in the wilderness, [in] perils in the sea, [in] perils among false brethren; ²⁷ [in] labour and travail, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness. ²⁸ Beside those things that are without, there is that which presseth upon me daily, anxiety for all the churches. ²⁹ Who is weak, and I am not weak? who is made to stumble, and I burn not? ³⁰ If I must needs glory, I will glory of the things that concern my weakness. ³¹ The God and Father of the Lord Jesus, he who is blessed for evermore, knoweth that I lie not. ³² In Damascus the governor under Aretas the king guarded the city of the Damascenes, in order to take me: ³³ and through a window was I let down in a basket by the wall, and escaped his hands.