2 Corinthians 11:18

THE MESSAGE

Parallel Translations

New American Standard Bible (1995)
Since many boast according to the flesh, I will boast also.

Legacy Standard Bible
Since many boast according to the flesh, I will boast also.

Simplified Cowboy Version
Other cowboys are bragging about their wild rides so I will too.

Bible in Basic English
Seeing that there are those who take credit to themselves after the flesh, I will do the same.

Darby Translation
Since many boast according to flesh, *I* also will boast.

Christian Standard Bible®
Since many boast in an unspiritual way, I will also boast.

World English Bible
Seeing that many boast after the flesh, I will also boast.

Wesley's New Testament (1755)
Seeing many glory after the flesh, I will glory also.

Weymouth's New Testament
Since many boast for merely human reasons, I too will boast.

King James Version (1611)
Seeing that many glory after the flesh, I will glory also.

Literal Translation
Since many boast according to the flesh, I also will boast.

Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
Seynge that many boaste them selues after ye flesh, I wil boast my selfe also.

Mace New Testament (1729)
since many glory in outward advantages, I will glory too.

Amplified Bible
Since many boast [of worldly things and brag] about human accomplishments, I will boast too.

American Standard Version
Seeing that many glory after the flesh, I will glory also.

Revised Standard Version
since many boast of worldly things, I too will boast.)

Tyndale New Testament (1525)
Seynge that many reioyce after ye flesshe I will reioyce also.

Update Bible Version
Seeing that many glory after the flesh, I will glory also.

Webster's Bible Translation
Seeing that many glory after the flesh, I will glory also.

Young's Literal Translation
since many boast according to the flesh, I also will boast:

New Century Version
Many people are bragging about their lives in the world. So I will brag too.

New English Translation
Since many are boasting according to human standards, I too will boast.

Berean Standard Bible
Since many are boasting according to the flesh, I too will boast.

Contemporary English Version
Yet if others want to brag about what they have done, so will I.

Complete Jewish Bible
Since many people boast in a worldly way, I too will boast this way.

English Standard Version
Since many boast according to the flesh, I too will boast.

Geneva Bible (1587)
Seeing that many reioyce after the flesh, I will reioyce also.

George Lamsa Translation
Because many boast on the things of the flesh, I boast also.

Hebrew Names Version
Seeing that many boast after the flesh, I will also boast.

International Standard Version
Since many people boast in a fleshly way, I will do it, too.Philippians 3:3-4;">[xr]

Etheridge Translation
Because many boast in the flesh, I also will boast.

Murdock Translation
Because many glory after the flesh, I also will glory.

New King James Version
Seeing that many boast according to the flesh, I also will boast.

New Living Translation
And since others boast about their human achievements, I will, too.

New Life Bible
Since the other men tell you all about themselves, I will talk about myself also.

English Revised Version
Seeing that many glory after the flesh, I will glory also.

New Revised Standard
since many boast according to human standards, I will also boast.

J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
Since, many, are boasting after the flesh, I also, will boast;

Douay-Rheims Bible
Seeing that many glory according to the flesh, I will glory also.

King James Version
Seeing that many glory after the flesh, I will glory also.

Lexham English Bible
Since many are boasting according to human standards, I also will boast.

Bishop's Bible (1568)
Seyng that many glorie after ye fleshe, I wyll glorie also.

Easy-to-Read Version
Others are boasting about their lives in the world. So I will boast too.

New American Standard Bible
Since many boast according to the flesh, I will boast also.

Good News Translation
But since there are so many who boast for merely human reasons, I will do the same.

Wycliffe Bible (1395)
For many men glorien aftir the fleisch, and Y schal glorie.

Contextual Overview

¹⁶Let me come back to where I started—and don't hold it against me if I continue to sound a little foolish. Or if you'd rather, just accept that I am a fool and let me rant on a little. I didn't learn this kind of talk from Christ. Oh, no, it's a bad habit I picked up from the three-ring preachers that are so popular these days. Since you sit there in the judgment seat observing all these shenanigans, you can afford to humor an occasional fool who happens along. You have such admirable tolerance for impostors who rob your freedom, rip you off, steal you blind, put you down—even slap your face! I shouldn't admit it to you, but our stomachs aren't strong enough to tolerate that kind of stuff. Since you admire the egomaniacs of the pulpit so much (remember, this is your old friend, the fool, talking), let me try my hand at it. Do they brag of being Hebrews, Israelites, the pure race of Abraham? I'm their match. Are they servants of Christ? I can go them one better. (I can't believe I'm saying these things. It's crazy to talk this way! But I started, and I'm going to finish.) I've worked much harder, been jailed more often, beaten up more times than I can count, and at death's door time after time. I've been flogged five times with the Jews' thirty-nine lashes, beaten by Roman rods three times, pummeled with rocks once. I've been shipwrecked three times, and immersed in the open sea for a night and a day. In hard traveling year in and year out, I've had to ford rivers, fend off robbers, struggle with friends, struggle with foes. I've been at risk in the city, at risk in the country, endangered by desert sun and sea storm, and betrayed by those I thought were my brothers. I've known drudgery and hard labor, many a long and lonely night without sleep, many a missed meal, blasted by the cold, naked to the weather. And that's not the half of it, when you throw in the daily pressures and anxieties of all the churches. When someone gets to the end of his rope, I feel the desperation in my bones. When someone is duped into sin, an angry fire burns in my gut. If I have to "brag" about myself, I'll brag about the humiliations that make me like Jesus. The eternal and blessed God and Father of our Master Jesus knows I'm not lying. Remember the time I was in Damascus and the governor of King Aretas posted guards at the city gates to arrest me? I crawled through a window in the wall, was let down in a basket, and had to run for my life.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

many: 2 Corinthians 11:12, 2 Corinthians 11:21-23, 2 Corinthians 10:12-18, Jeremiah 9:23, Jeremiah 9:24, 1 Corinthians 4:10, 1 Peter 1:24

I will: 2 Corinthians 12:5, 2 Corinthians 12:6, 2 Corinthians 12:9, 2 Corinthians 12:11

Reciprocal: 1 Corinthians 10:18 - Israel 2 Corinthians 10:7 - even 2 Corinthians 11:17 - foolishly Galatians 6:13 - that they may Philippians 3:4 - General

Gill's Notes on the Bible

Seeing that many glory after the flesh,.... Or with respect to things external, such as their high birth and parentage, carnal descent, circumcision, learned education, and the like; of which the false apostles, being Jews, boasted, who it seems were many; and though a multitude is not to be followed to do evil, yet the apostle thought, that since there were so many who were indulged by this church in this way, he might be allowed to boast also of such like things, so far as he could with truth and a good conscience, and in order to secure some valuable ends:

I will glory also; for he was of the seed of Abraham as well as they, of the stock of Israel, and tribe of Benjamin, circumcised the eighth day, and brought up at the feet of Gamaliel; but these are not all the things he could, and would, and did glory of; he gloried of these, and of others besides them, which the false apostles could not, and thereby proved himself to be superior to them, even in external things, of which they bragged so much.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Seeing that many glory ... - The false teachers in Corinth. They boasted of their birth, rank, natural endowments, eloquence, etc.; see 2 Corinthians 11:22. Compare Philippians 3:3-4.

I will glory also - I also will boast of my endowments, which though somewhat different yet pertain in the main to the “flesh” also; see 2 Corinthians 11:23 ff. His endowments “in the flesh,” or what he had to boast of pertaining to the flesh, related not so much to birth and rank, though not inferior to them in these, but to what the flesh had endured - to stripes and imprisonments, and hunger and peril. This is an exceedingly delicate and happy turn given to the whole subject.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse 18. Seeing that many glory after the flesh — Boast of external and secular things.