Indeed, the signs of an apostle were performed among you with great perseverance by signs and wonders and powerful deeds.

I do not mean that we rule over your faith, but we are workers with you for your joy, because by faith you stand firm.

But since we have the same spirit of faith as that shown in what has been written, “I believed; therefore I spoke,” we also believe, therefore we also speak.

We do so because we know that the one who raised up Jesus will also raise us up with Jesus and will bring us with you into his presence.

as unknown, and yet well-known; as dying and yet – see! – we continue to live; as those who are scourged and yet not executed;

Do not become partners with those who do not believe, for what partnership is there between righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship does light have with darkness?

For if the eagerness is present, the gift itself is acceptable according to whatever one has, not according to what he does not have.

Therefore it is not surprising his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness, whose end will correspond to their actions.

But if we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort that you experience in your patient endurance of the same sufferings that we also suffer.

And we all, with unveiled faces reflecting the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another, which is from the Lord, who is the Spirit.

We are not trying to commend ourselves to you again, but are giving you an opportunity to be proud of us, so that you may be able to answer those who take pride in outward appearance and not in what is in the heart.

even because of the extraordinary character of the revelations. Therefore, so that I would not become arrogant, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to trouble me – so that I would not become arrogant.

But if the ministry that produced death – carved in letters on stone tablets – came with glory, so that the Israelites could not keep their eyes fixed on the face of Moses because of the glory of his face (a glory which was made ineffective),