For such people are false apostles, deceitful workers, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ.

I have been on journeys many times, in dangers from rivers, in dangers from robbers, in dangers from my own countrymen, in dangers from Gentiles, in dangers in the city, in dangers in the wilderness, in dangers at sea, in dangers from false brothers,

For I consider myself not at all inferior to those “super-apostles.”

Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? We don’t need letters of recommendation to you or from you as some other people do, do we?

But be that as it may, I have not burdened you. Yet because I was a crafty person, I took you in by deceit!

I have become a fool. You yourselves forced me to do it, for I should have been commended by you. For I lack nothing in comparison to those “super-apostles,” even though I am nothing.

But we have rejected shameful hidden deeds, not behaving with deceptiveness or distorting the word of God, but by open proclamation of the truth we commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience before God.