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| 1 | Would that ye would bear with me [in] a little folly; but indeed bear with me. |
| 2 | For I am jealous as to you with a jealousy [which is] of God; for I have espoused you unto one man, to present [you] a chaste virgin to Christ. |
| 3 | But I fear lest by any means, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craft, [so] your thoughts should be corrupted from simplicity as to the Christ. |
| 4 | For if indeed he that comes preaches another Jesus, whom we have not preached, or ye get a different Spirit, which ye have not got, or a different glad tidings, which ye have not received, ye might well bear with [it]. |
| 5 | For I reckon that in nothing I am behind those who are in surpassing degree apostles. |
| 6 | But if [I am] a simple person in speech, yet not in knowledge, but in everything making [the truth] manifest in all things to you. |
| 7 | Have I committed sin, abasing myself in order that *ye* might be exalted, because I gratuitously announced to you the glad tidings of God? |
| 8 | I spoiled other assemblies, receiving hire for ministry towards you. |
| 9 | And being present with you and lacking, I did not lazily burden any one, (for the brethren who came from Macedonia supplied what I lacked,) and in everything I kept myself from being a burden to you, and will keep myself. |
| 10 | [The] truth of Christ is in me that this boasting shall not be stopped as to me in the regions of Achaia. |
| 11 | Why? because I do not love you? God knows. |
| 12 | But what I do, I will also do, that I may cut off the opportunity of those wishing [for] an opportunity, that wherein they boast they may be found even as we. |
| 13 | For such [are] false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into apostles of Christ. |
| 14 | And [it is] not wonderful, for Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light. |
| 15 | It is no great thing therefore if his ministers also transform themselves as ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works. |
| 16 | Again I say, Let not any one think me to be a fool; but if otherwise, receive me then even as a fool, that *I* also may boast myself some little. |
| 17 | What I speak I do not speak according to [the] Lord, but as in folly, in this confidence of boasting. |
| 18 | Since many boast according to flesh, *I* also will boast. |
| 19 | For ye bear fools readily, being wise. |
| 20 | For ye bear if any one bring you into bondage, if any one devour [you], if any one get [your money], if any one exalt himself, if any one beat you on the face. |
| 21 | I speak as to dishonour, as though *we* had been weak; but wherein any one is daring, (I speak in folly,) *I* also am daring. |
| 22 | Are they Hebrews? *I* also. Are they Israelites? *I* also. Are they seed of Abraham? *I* also. |
| 23 | Are they ministers of Christ? (I speak as being beside myself) *I* above measure [so]; in labours exceedingly abundant, in stripes to excess, in prisons exceedingly abundant, in deaths oft. |
| 24 | From the Jews five times have I received forty [stripes], save one. |
| 25 | Thrice have I been scourged, once I have been stoned, three times I have suffered shipwreck, a night and day I passed in the deep: |
| 26 | in journeyings often, in perils of rivers, in perils of robbers, in perils from [my own] race, in perils from [the] nations, in perils in [the] city, in perils in [the] desert, in perils on [the] sea, in perils among false brethren; |
| 27 | in labour and toil, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness. |
| 28 | Besides those things that are without, the crowd [of cares] pressing on me daily, the burden of all the assemblies. |
| 29 | Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is stumbled, and I burn not? |
| 30 | If it is needful to boast, I will boast in the things which concern my infirmity. |
| 31 | The God and Father of the Lord Jesus knows -- he who is blessed for ever -- that I do not lie. |
| 32 | In Damascus the ethnarch of Aretas the king kept the city of the Damascenes shut up, wishing to take me; |
| 33 | and through a window in a basket I was let down by the wall, and escaped his hands.
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