For we would not dare to classify or compare ourselves with some of those who recommend themselves. But when they measure themselves by themselves and compare themselves with themselves, they are without understanding. ¹ 

You yourselves are our letter, ¹  written on our hearts, known and read by everyone,

Therefore show ¹  them openly before the churches the proof of your love and of our pride in you. ² 

And our hope for you is steadfast because we know that as you share in ¹  our sufferings, so also you will share in ²  our comfort.

But thanks be to God who always leads us in triumphal procession ¹  in Christ ²  and who makes known ³  through us the fragrance that consists of the knowledge of him in every place.

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? ¹ 

God ¹  made the one who did not know sin ²  to be sin for us, so that in him ³  we would become the righteousness of God.

Do not become partners ¹  with those who do not believe, for what partnership is there between righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship does light have with darkness?

because the service of this ministry is not only providing for ¹  the needs of the saints but is also overflowing with many thanks to God.

It is necessary to go on boasting. ¹  Though it is not profitable, I will go on to visions and revelations from the Lord.

Therefore I am content with ¹  weaknesses, with insults, with troubles, with persecutions and difficulties ²  for the sake of Christ, for whenever I am weak, then I am strong.

Now I will most gladly spend and be spent for your lives! ¹  If I love you more, am I to be loved less?

For if I have boasted to him about anything concerning you, I have not been embarrassed by you, ¹  but just as everything we said to you was true, ²  so our boasting to Titus about you ³  has proved true as well.

But as you excel ¹  in everything – in faith, in speech, in knowledge, and in all eagerness and in the love from us that is in you ²  – make sure that you excel ³  in this act of kindness ⁴  too.

In addition, ¹  this brother ²  has also been chosen by the churches as our traveling companion as we administer this generous gift ³  to the glory of the Lord himself and to show our readiness to help. ⁴ 

But I am sending ¹  these brothers so that our boasting about you may not be empty in this case, so that you may be ready ²  just as I kept telling them.

For if someone comes and proclaims ¹  another Jesus different from the one we proclaimed, ²  or if you receive a different spirit than the one you received, ³  or a different gospel than the one you accepted, ⁴  you put up with it well enough! ⁵