1 Would that you{+} could bear with me in a little foolishness: but indeed you{+} do 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 someone comes preaching a different Jesus than we preached, or you{+} receive a spirit other than you{+} received, or good news other than you{+} accepted, you{+} endure well.

5 For I reckon that I am not a bit behind the very chiefest apostles.

6 But though [I am] unskilled in speaking, yet [I am] not [unskilled] in knowledge; certainly, in every way we have made [this] manifest to you{+} in all things.

7 Or did I commit a sin in abasing myself that you{+} might be exalted, because I preached to you{+} the good news of God for nothing?

8 I robbed other churches, taking wages to serve you{+};

9 and when I was present with you{+} and was in want, I was not a burden on any man; for the brothers, when they came from Macedonia, supplied the measure of my want; and in everything I kept myself from being burdensome to you{+}, and [so] I will keep [myself].

10 As the truth of Christ is in me, no man will stop me of this glorying in the regions of Achaia.

11 Why? Because I do not love you{+}? God knows.

12 But what I do, I will continue to do, that I may cut off occasion from those who desire an occasion; that in what 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 wonder; for even Satan fashions himself into an angel of light.

15 It is no great thing therefore if his servants also fashion themselves as servants of righteousness, whose end will be according to their works.

16 I say again, let no man think me foolish; but if [you{+} do], yet receive me as foolish, that I also may glory a little.

17 That which I speak, I don't speak 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 you{+} bear with the foolish gladly, being wise [yourselves].

20 For you{+} bear with a man, if he brings you{+} into slavery, if he devours you{+}, if he takes you{+} [captive], if he exalts himself, if he strikes you{+} on the face.

21 I speak by way of shame, as though we had been weak. Yet in what 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 servants of Christ? (I speak as one beside himself) I more; in labors more abundantly, in prisons more abundantly, in stripes above measure, in deaths often.

24 Of the Jews five times I received forty [stripes] less one.

25 Thrice I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I have 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 brothers;

27 [in] labor and travail, in sleeplessness often, in hunger and thirst, in fasts often, in cold and nakedness.

28 Besides those things that are outside, there is that which presses on me daily, anxiety for all the churches.

29 Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is caused to stumble, and I do not burn [with distress]?

30 If I must surely glory, I will glory of the things that concern my weakness.

31 The God and Father of the Lord Jesus, he who is blessed forevermore knows that I do not lie.

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 I was let down in a basket by the wall, and escaped his hands.