Sawyer(i)
1 (3:3) I wish you would bear a little with my folly; and indeed do bear with me.
2 For I am zealous for you with a godly zeal, for I joined you, a chaste virgin, to one husband, to present to Christ;
3 but I fear lest as the serpent deceived Eve with his craftiness, so also your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity which is in Christ.
4 For if he that comes preaches another Jesus whom we did not preach, or you receive another spirit which you did not receive, or another gospel which you did not receive, you might well bear it;
5 for I judge that I am not behind the chief of the apostles.
6 And even if I am rude in speech, I certainly am not in knowledge, but we have been made fully manifest to you in all things.
7 Have I done wrong to humble myself that you might be exalted, that I preached the gospel of God to you gratuitously?
8 I robbed other churches taking wages to serve you;
9 and when I was with you and was in want, I was burdensome to no one; for the brothers who came from Macedonia supplied beforehand my need; and in every thing I kept myself without being burdensome to you, and will keep myself so.
10 (3:4) As the truth of Christ is in me, this boasting in respect to myself shall not be silenced in the regions of Achaia.
11 Why? Because I love you not? God knows.
12 But what I do I also will do, that I may take away an occasion from those who wish an occasion, that wherein they boast they may be found even as we are.
13 For such false apostles, deceitful laborers, transform themselves into apostles of Christ.
14 And no wonder; for Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light.
15 It is no great thing, therefore, if his ministers transform themselves as ministers of righteousness, whose end will be according to their works.
16 (3:5) Again, I say let no one think me to be foolish; but if otherwise, even as a foolish man bear with me that I may boast a little.
17 What I say, I do not say according to the Lord, but as it were in foolishness, in this confidence of boasting.
18 Since many boast of the flesh, I also will boast.
19 You endure fools patiently being wise;
20 for you endure it if any one reduces you to servitude, if any one devours you, if any one takes from you, if any one exalts himself against you, if any one beats you in the face.
21 (3:6) I speak of reproach as if we were weak; wherein any one is bold, I speak foolishly, I am bold also.
22 Are they Hebrews? so am I. Are they Israelites? so am I. Are they the posterity of Abraham? so am I.
23 Are they ministers of Christ? I speak foolishly, I am more; in labors most abundant, in stripes above measure, in imprisonments most abundant, in deaths often;
24 five times I received of the Jews forty [stripes] lacking one,
25 thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice have I been shipwrecked, a night and a day have I spent in the deep;
26 often on journeys, in dangers from rivers, in dangers from robbers, in dangers from [my own] race, in dangers from gentiles, in dangers in the city, in dangers in the wilderness, in dangers on the sea, in dangers among false brothers,
27 in labor and weariness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness.
28 Besides things without, that which comes upon me daily, the care of all the churches.
29 Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is offended, and I am not displeased?
30 If it is necessary to boast, I will boast of my infirmities.
31 The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is blessed forever, knows that I lie not.
32 In Damascus, the ethnarch, when Aretas was king, guarded the city of the Damascenes, desiring to take me,
33 and I was let down in a rope-basket, by a window in the wall, and escaped from his hands.