< 2 Corinthians 11 >
1 I would that ye could bear with me a little, that I might talk foolishly: and indeed, bear ye with me.
2 For I am jealous over you, with a godly jealousy: for I have espoused you to a husband as a chaste virgin, whom I would present to the Messiah.
3 But I fear, lest, as the serpent beguiled Eve by his craftiness, so your minds should be corrupted from simplicity towards the Messiah.
4 For if he that cometh to you, had proclaimed to you another Jesus, whom we have not proclaimed; or if ye had received another Spirit, which ye have not received; or another gospel, which ye have not accepted; ye might well have given assent.
5 For, I suppose, I came not short of those legates who most excel.
6 For, though I be rude in speech, yet not in knowledge; but in all things we have been manifest among you.
7 Did I indeed commit an offence, by humbling myself that ye might be exalted? and by proclaiming the gospel of God to you gratis?
8 And I robbed other churches, and I took pay of them for ministering to you.
9 And when I came among you and was needy, I was burdensome to none of you; for the brethren who came from Macedonia, supplied my wants: and in all things I kept myself, and I will keep myself, from being burdensome to you.
10 As the truth of the Messiah is in me, this glorying shall not be made vain as to me in the regions of Achaia.
11 Why? Because I do not love you? God knoweth.
12 But what I do, that also I will do; that I may cut off occasion, from them who seek occasion: so that in the thing wherein they glory, they may be found even as we.
13 For they are false legates, crafty workers, and feign themselves to be legates of the Messiah.
14 And in this there is nothing strange. For if Satan feigneth himself an angel of light,
15 it is no great thing if his ministers feign themselves ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works.
16 Again I say, let no one think of me, as being a fool: or if otherwise, receive me as a fool, that I may glory a little.
17 What I am now saying, I say not in our Lord, but as in folly, in this matter of glorying.
18 Because many glory after the flesh, I also will glory.
19 For ye hear with indulgence them who lack reason, seeing ye are wise.
20 And ye give ear to him, who putteth you in bondage; and to him, who devoureth you; and to him, who taketh from you; and to him, who exalteth himself over you; and to him, who smiteth you in the face.
21 I speak as if under contempt: I speak as if we were impotent, through deficiency of understanding; that in whatever thing any one is presuming, I also am presuming.
22 If they are Hebrews, so I also: or if they are Israelites, I also. If they are the seed of Abraham, I also.
23 If they are ministers of the Messiah, (in defect of understanding, I say it, ) I am superior to them: in toils more than they, in stripes more than they, in bonds more than they, in deaths many times.
24 By the Jews, five times was I scourged, each time with forty stripes save one.
25 Three times was I beaten with rods: at one time I was stoned: three times I was in shipwreck, by day and by night; I have been in the sea, without a ship.
26 In journeyings many, in peril by rivers, in peril by robbers, in peril from my kindred, in peril from Gentiles: I have been in peril in cities; I have been in peril in the desert, in peril in the sea, in peril from false brethren.
27 In toil and weariness, in much watching, in hunger and thirst, in much fasting, in cold and nakedness:
28 besides many other things, and the thronging around me every day, and my anxiety for all the churches.
29 Who becometh weak, and I become not weak? Who is stumbled, and I burn not?
30 If I must glory, I will glory in my infirmities.
31 God, the Father of our Lord Jesus the Messiah, blessed for ever and ever, he knoweth that I lie not. (aiōn )
32 At Damascus, the commander of the army of Aretas the king, guarded the city of the Damascenes, to seize me.
33 And from a window, in a basket, they let me down from the wall, and I escaped from his hands.
