1I wish you would put up with me in a little foolishness. Yes, do put up with me.
2I am jealous over you with a jealousy that comes from God. I promised you to one husband, so that I might present you to Christ as a pure virgin.
3But I am afraid of this: as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, so your minds may be led away from the simple, sincere devotion that is in Christ.
4For if someone comes and preaches another Jesus, whom we did not preach, or if you receive a different spirit, which you did not receive, or a different gospel, which you did not accept, you put up with him well enough.
5For I think I am not in the least behind the very greatest apostles.
6Even if I am unskilled in speaking, I am not unskilled in knowledge. We have made this plain to you in every way, in all things.
7Did I do wrong when I made myself low so that you might be lifted up, because I preached the gospel of God to you free of charge?
8I robbed other churches, taking pay from them, so that I could serve you.
9And when I was with you and was in need, I was a burden to no one. The brothers who came from Macedonia supplied what I lacked. In everything I kept myself from being a burden to you, and I will keep myself so.
10As the truth of Christ is in me, no one shall stop me from this boasting in the regions of Achaia.
11Why? Because I do not love you? God knows that I do.
12But what I am doing, I will go on doing. I will take away the chance from those who want a chance to be seen as equal to us in the thing they boast about.
13For such men are false apostles. They are dishonest workers, who make themselves look like apostles of Christ.
14And that is no wonder, for Satan himself makes himself look like an angel of light.
15So it is no great thing if his servants also make themselves look like servants of righteousness. Their end will match what they have done.
16I say again, let no one think I am a fool. But if you do, then accept me as a fool, so that I may boast a little myself.
17What I am saying, I do not say as the Lord would, but as a fool would, in this confidence of boasting.
18Since many boast in the way people of this world do, I will boast too.
19For you gladly put up with fools, since you are so wise.
20For you put up with it if someone makes slaves of you, if someone eats you up, if someone takes from you, if someone lifts himself above you, if someone strikes you in the face.
21I say this to our shame, as though we had been too weak for that. But whatever anyone else dares to boast about (I am speaking foolishly), I dare to boast about too.
22Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they the descendants of Abraham? So am I.
23Are they servants of Christ? (I speak as a fool.) I am more. I have worked harder, been beaten far more, been in prison more often, and often been near death.
24Five times I received from the Jews forty lashes less one.
25Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked. I spent a night and a day in the open sea.
26I have often been on journeys, in danger from rivers, in danger from robbers, in danger from my own countrymen, in danger from the Gentiles, in danger in the city, in danger in the wilderness, in danger at sea, in danger among false brothers;
27in weariness and pain, often without sleep, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and without clothing.
28Besides the things that come from outside, there is what presses on me every day: my concern for all the churches.
29Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to stumble, and I do not burn?
30If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness.
31The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is blessed for ever, knows that I am not lying.
32In Damascus the governor under King Aretas guarded the city of the Damascenes with soldiers, wanting to arrest me.
33But I was let down in a basket through a window in the wall, and I escaped his hands.