When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. But when I became an adult, I set aside childish ways.

For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.

For he has put everything in subjection under his feet. But when it says “everything” has been put in subjection, it is clear that this does not include the one who put everything in subjection to him.

Blessed is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort,

just as also you have partly understood us, that we are your source of pride just as you also are ours in the day of the Lord Jesus.

For we are not like so many others, hucksters who peddle the word of God for profit, but we are speaking in Christ before God as persons of sincerity, as persons sent from God.

and not like Moses who used to put a veil over his face to keep the Israelites from staring at the result of the glory that was made ineffective.

But we have this treasure in clay jars, so that the extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us.

For we who are alive are constantly being handed over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our mortal body.

For all these things are for your sake, so that the grace that is including more and more people may cause thanksgiving to increase to the glory of God.

For we know that if our earthly house, the tent we live in, is dismantled, we have a building from God, a house not built by human hands, that is eternal in the heavens.

Therefore, because we know the fear of the Lord, we try to persuade people, but we are well known to God, and I hope we are well known to your consciences too.

For the love of Christ controls us, since we have concluded this, that Christ died for all; therefore all have died.

So then from now on we acknowledge no one from an outward human point of view. Even though we have known Christ from such a human point of view, now we do not know him in that way any longer.

For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that although he was rich, he became poor for your sakes, so that you by his poverty could become rich.

because some say, “His letters are weighty and forceful, but his physical presence is weak and his speech is of no account.”

But we will not boast beyond certain limits, but will confine our boasting according to the limits of the work to which God has appointed us, that reaches even as far as you.

For we were not overextending ourselves, as though we did not reach as far as you, because we were the first to reach as far as you with the gospel about Christ.

The God and Father of the Lord Jesus, who is blessed forever, knows I am not lying.

And I know that this man (whether in the body or apart from the body I do not know, God knows)