What I am saying with this boastful confidence I do not say the way the Lord would. Instead it is, as it were, foolishness.

but I was let down in a rope-basket through a window in the city wall, and escaped his hands.

But even if we (or an angel from heaven) should preach a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be condemned to hell!

As we have said before, and now I say again, if any one is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you received, let him be condemned to hell!

Now I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel I preached is not of human origin.

Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas and get information from him, and I stayed with him fifteen days.

Listen! I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no benefit to you at all!

So we must not grow weary in doing good, for in due time we will reap, if we do not give up.

So then, whenever we have an opportunity, let us do good to all people, and especially to those who belong to the family of faith.

For he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world that we may be holy and unblemished in his sight in love.

For this reason I ask you not to lose heart because of what I am suffering for you, which is your glory.

I, therefore, the prisoner for the Lord, urge you to live worthily of the calling with which you have been called,

This mystery is great – but I am actually speaking with reference to Christ and the church.

I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that my situation has actually turned out to advance the gospel:

so that what you can be proud of may increase because of me in Christ Jesus, when I come back to you.

since you are encountering the same conflict that you saw me face and now hear that I am facing.

– though mine too are significant. If someone thinks he has good reasons to put confidence in human credentials, I have more:

Be imitators of me, brothers and sisters, and watch carefully those who are living this way, just as you have us as an example.

But our citizenship is in heaven – and we also await a savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ,

So then, my brothers and sisters, dear friends whom I long to see, my joy and crown, stand in the Lord in this way, my dear friends!