The Second to the Corinthians, 11

¹ I wish YOU would put up with me in some little unreasonableness. But, in fact, YOU are putting up with me!

² For I am jealous over YOU with a godly jealousy, for I personally promised YOU in marriage to one husband that I might present YOU as a chaste virgin to the Christ.

³ But I am afraid that somehow, as the serpent seduced Eve by its cunning, YOUR minds might be corrupted away from the sincerity and the chastity that are due the Christ.

⁴ For, as it is, if someone comes and preaches a Jesus other than the one we preached, or YOU receive a spirit other than what YOU received, or good news other than what YOU accepted, YOU easily put up [with him].

⁵ For I consider that I have not in a single thing proved inferior to YOUR superfine apostles.

⁶ But even if I am unskilled in speech, I certainly am not in knowledge; but in every way we manifested [it] to YOU in all things.

⁷ Or did I commit a sin by humbling myself that YOU might be exalted, because without cost I gladly declared the good news of God to YOU?

⁸ Other congregations I robbed by accepting provisions in order to minister to YOU;

⁹ and yet when I was present with YOU and I fell in need, I did not become a burden to a single one, for the brothers that came from Mac·e·doʹni·a abundantly supplied my deficiency. Yes, in every way I kept myself unburdensome to YOU and will keep myself so.

¹⁰ It is a truth of Christ in my case that no stop shall be put to this boasting of mine in the regions of A·chaʹia.

¹¹ For what reason? Because I do not love YOU? God knows [I do].

¹² Now what I am doing I will still do, that I may cut off the pretext from those who are wanting a pretext for being found equal to us in the office of which they boast.

¹³ For such men are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into apostles of Christ.

¹⁴ And no wonder, for Satan himself keeps transforming himself into an angel of light.

¹⁵ It is therefore nothing great if his ministers also keep transforming themselves into ministers of righteousness. But their end shall be according to their works.

¹⁶ I say again, Let no man think I am unreasonable. Still, if YOU really do, accept me even if as unreasonable, that I too may do some little boasting.

¹⁷ What I speak I speak, not after the Lord’s example, but as in unreasonableness, in this cocksureness peculiar to boasting.

¹⁸ Since many are boasting according to the flesh, I too will boast.

¹⁹ For YOU gladly put up with the unreasonable persons, seeing YOU are reasonable.

²⁰ In fact, YOU put up with whoever enslaves YOU, whoever devours [what YOU have], whoever grabs [what YOU have], whoever exalts himself over [YOU], whoever strikes YOU in the face.

²¹ I say this to [our] dishonor, as though our position had been weak. But if anyone else acts bold in something—I am talking unreasonably—I too am acting bold in it.

²² Are they Hebrews? I am one also. Are they Israelites? I am one also. Are they Abraham’s seed? I am also.

²³ Are they ministers of Christ? I reply like a madman, I am more outstandingly one: in labors more plentifully, in prisons more plentifully, in blows to an excess, in near-deaths often.

²⁴ By Jews I five times received forty strokes less one,

²⁵ three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I experienced shipwreck, a night and a day I have spent in the deep;

²⁶ in journeys often, in dangers from rivers, in dangers from highwaymen, in dangers from [my own] race, in dangers from the nations, in dangers in the city, in dangers in the wilderness, in dangers at sea, in dangers among false brothers,

²⁷ in labor and toil, in sleepless nights often, in hunger and thirst, in abstinence from food many times, in cold and nakedness.

²⁸ Besides those things of an external kind, there is what rushes in on me from day to day, the anxiety for all the congregations.

²⁹ Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is stumbled, and I am not incensed?

³⁰ If boasting there must be, I will boast of the things having to do with my weakness.

³¹ The God and Father of the Lord Jesus, even the One who is to be praised^*1 forever, knows I am not lying.

³² In Damascus the governor^*1 under A·reʹtas the king was guarding the city of the Dam·a·scenesʹ to seize me,

³³ but through a window in the wall I was lowered in a wicker basket and escaped his hands.