Read the Bible

¹ I would that ye could bear with me a little, that I might talk foolishly: and indeed, bear ye with me.² For I am jealous over you, with a godly jealousy: for I have espoused you to a husband as a chaste virgin, whom I would present to the Messiah.³ But I fear, lest, as the serpent beguiled Eve by his craftiness, so your minds should be corrupted from simplicity towards the Messiah.⁴ For if he that cometh to you, had proclaimed to you another Jesus, whom we have not proclaimed; or if ye had received another Spirit, which ye have not received; or another gospel, which ye have not accepted; ye might well have given assent.

⁵ For, I suppose, I came not short of those legates who most excel.⁶ For, though I be rude in speech, yet not in knowledge; but in all things we have been manifest among you.⁷ Did I indeed commit an offence, by humbling myself that ye might be exalted? and by proclaiming the gospel of God to you gratis?⁸ 8 And I robbed other churches, and I took pay [fn] for ministering to you. ⁹ And when I came among you and was needy, I was burdensome to none of you; for the brethren who came from Macedonia, supplied my wants: and in all things I kept myself, and I will keep myself, from being burdensome to you.¹⁰ As the truth of the Messiah is in me, this glorying shall not be made vain as to me in the regions of Achaia.¹¹ Why? Because I do not love you? God knoweth.¹² But what I do, that also I will do; that I may cut off occasion, from them who seek occasion: so that in the thing wherein they glory, they may be found even as we.¹³ For they are false legates, crafty workers, and feign themselves to be legates of the Messiah.¹⁴ And in this there is nothing strange. For if Satan feigneth himself an angel of light,¹⁵ it is no great thing if his ministers feign themselves ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works.

¹⁶ Again I say, let no one think of me, as being a fool: or if otherwise, receive me as a fool, that I may glory a little.¹⁷ 17 What I am [fn] saying, I say not in our Lord, but as in folly, in this matter of glorying. ¹⁸ Because many glory after the flesh, I also will glory.¹⁹ For ye hear with indulgence them who lack reason, seeing ye are wise.²⁰ And ye give ear to him, who putteth you in bondage; and to him, who devoureth you; and to him, who taketh from you; and to him, who exalteth himself over you; and to him, who smiteth you in the face.²¹ I speak as if under contempt: I speak as if we were impotent, through deficiency of understanding; that in whatever thing any one is presuming, I also am presuming.

²² If they are Hebrews, so I also: or if they are Israelites, I also. If they are the seed of Abraham, I also.²³ If they are ministers of the Messiah, (in defect of understanding, I say it,) I am superior to them: in toils more than they, in stripes more than they, in bonds more than they, in deaths many times.²⁴ By the Jews, five times was I scourged, each time with forty stripes save one.²⁵ Three times was I beaten with rods: at one time I was stoned: three times I was in shipwreck, by day and by night; I have been in the sea, without a ship.²⁶ In journeyings many, in peril by rivers, in peril by robbers, in peril from my kindred, in peril from Gentiles: I have been in peril in cities; I have been in peril in the desert, in peril in the sea, in peril from false brethren.²⁷ In toil and weariness, in much watching, in hunger and thirst, in much fasting, in cold and nakedness:²⁸ besides many other things, and the thronging around me every day, and my anxiety for all the churches.²⁹ Who becometh weak, and I become not weak? Who is stumbled, and I burn not?³⁰ If I must glory, I will glory in my infirmities.³¹ God, the Father of our Lord Jesus the Messiah, blessed for ever and ever, he knoweth that I lie not.³² At Damascus, the commander of the army of Aretas the king, guarded the city of the Damascenes, to seize me.³³ And from a window, in a basket, they let me down from the wall, and I escaped from his hands.