Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they descendants of Abraham? So am I.

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.

Are they servants of Christ? (I am talking like I am out of my mind!) I am even more so: with much greater labors, with far more imprisonments, with more severe beatings, facing death many times.

I am not saying this as a command, but I am testing the genuineness of your love by comparison with the eagerness of others. ¹ 

I have great confidence in you; I take great pride ¹  on your behalf. I am filled with encouragement; ²  I am overflowing with joy in the midst of ³  all our suffering.

I rejoice because in everything I am fully confident in you.

And even if I am unskilled ¹  in speaking, yet I am certainly not so in knowledge. Indeed, we have made this plain to you in everything in every way.

Now I, Paul, appeal to you ¹  personally ²  by the meekness and gentleness ³  of Christ (I who am meek ⁴  when present among ⁵  you, but am full of courage ⁶  toward you when away!) –

Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is led into sin, ¹  and I do not burn with indignation?

What I am saying with this boastful confidence ¹  I do not say the way the Lord would. ²  Instead it is, as it were, foolishness.

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

This is the third time I am coming to visit ¹  you. By the testimony ²  of two or three witnesses every matter will be established. ³ 

I do not want to seem as though I am trying to terrify you with my letters,

For I am jealous for you with godly jealousy, because I promised you in marriage to one husband, ¹  to present you as a pure ²  virgin to Christ.

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

But I am afraid that ¹  just as the serpent ²  deceived Eve by his treachery, ³  your minds may be led astray ⁴  from a sincere and pure ⁵  devotion to Christ.

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 ¹  to those “super-apostles,” even though I am nothing.

(To my disgrace ¹  I must say that we were too weak for that!) ²  But whatever anyone else dares to boast about ³  (I am speaking foolishly), I also dare to boast about the same thing. ⁴ 

For I am afraid that somehow when I come I will not find you what I wish, and you will find me ¹  not what you wish. I am afraid that ²  somehow there may be quarreling, jealousy, intense anger, selfish ambition, ³  slander, gossip, arrogance, and disorder.

now I ask that when I am present I may not have to be bold with the confidence that (I expect) I will dare to use against some who consider us to be behaving ¹  according to human standards. ²