Would to
God ye could bear with me a little in my folly:
and indeed bear with me.
02 For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy:
for I have espoused you to one husband, that I
may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ.
03 But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent
beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds
should be corrupted from the simplicity that is
in Christ.
04 For if he that cometh preacheth another Jesus,
whom we have not preached, or if ye receive
another spirit, which ye have not received, or
another gospel, which ye have not accepted, ye
might well bear with him.
05 For I suppose I was not a whit behind the very
chiefest apostles.
06 But though I be rude in speech, yet not in
knowledge; but we have been throughly made
manifest among you in all things.
07 Have I committed an offence in abasing myself
that ye might be exalted, because I have preached
to you the gospel of God freely?
08 I robbed other churches, taking wages of them,
to do you service.
09 And when I was present with you, and wanted, I
was chargeable to no man: for that which was
lacking to me the brethren which came from
Macedonia supplied: and in all things I have 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 boasting 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 occasion;
that wherein they glory, they may be found even
as we.
13 For such are false apostles, deceitful
workers, transforming themselves into the
apostles of Christ.
14 And no marvel; for Satan himself is
transformed into an angel of light.
15 Therefore it is no great thing if his
ministers also be transformed as the ministers of
righteousness; whose end shall be according to
their works.
16 I say again, Let no man think me a fool; if
otherwise, yet as a fool receive me, that I may
boast myself a little.
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17 That which I speak, I speak it not after the
Lord, but as it were foolishly, in this
confidence of boasting.
18 Seeing that many glory after the flesh, I will
glory also.
19 For ye suffer fools gladly, seeing ye
yourselves are wise.
20 For ye suffer, if a man bring you into
bondage, if a man devour you, if a man take of
you, if a man exalt himself, if a man smite you
on the face.
21 I speak as concerning reproach, as though we
had been weak. Howbeit whereinsoever any is bold,
(I speak foolishly,) 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 a
fool) I am more; in labours more abundant, in
stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent,
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 I have been in the deep;
26 In journeyings often, in perils of waters, in
perils of robbers, in perils by mine own
countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils
in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in
perils in the sea, in perils among false
brethren;
27 In weariness and painfulness, in watchings
often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often,
in cold and nakedness.
28 Beside those things that are without, that
which cometh upon me daily, the care of all the
churches.
29 Who is weak, and I am not weak? who is
offended, and I burn not?
30 If I must needs glory, I will glory of the
things which concern mine infirmities.
31 The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
which is blessed for evermore, knoweth that I lie
not.
32 In Damascus the governor under Aretas the king
kept the city of the Damascenes with a garrison,
desirous to apprehend me:
33 And through a window in a basket was I let
down by the wall, and escaped his hands.
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