The Epistles of Paul to the Corinthians.
The Harvard Classics. 1909–14. |
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| The Second Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians |
| | | XI |
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| [1] | WOULD that ye could bear with me in a little foolishness: but 1 indeed ye do bear with me. |
| [2] | For I am jealous over you with a 2 godly jealousy: for I espoused you to one husband, that I might present you as a pure virgin to Christ. |
| [3] | But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve in his craftiness, your minds 3 should be corrupted from the simplicity and the purity that is toward Christ. |
| [4] | For if he that cometh preacheth another Jesus, whom we did not preach, or if ye receive a different spirit, which ye did not receive, or a different gospel, 4 which ye did not accept, ye do well to bear with him. |
| [5] | For I reckon that I am not a whit behind the 5 very chiefest apostles. |
| [6] | But though I be rude in speech, yet am I not in knowledge; nay, 6 in every way have we made this manifest unto you in all things. |
| [7] | Or did I commit a sin in abasing myself that ye might be exalted, because I preached 7 to you the gospel of God for nought? |
| [8] | I robbed other churches, taking wages of them that I might minister unto you; |
| [9] | and when I was present with you and was in want, I was not a burden on any man; for the brethren, when they came from Macedonia, supplied the measure of my want; and in everything I kept myself from being burdensome unto you, and so will I keep myself. |
| [10] | As the truth of Christ is in me, no man shall stop me of this glorying in the regions of Achaia. |
| [11] | Wherefore? because I love you not? God knoweth. |
| [12] | But what I do, that I will do, that I may cut off occasion 8 from them that desire an occasion; that wherein they glory, they may be found even as we. |
| [13] | For such men are false apostles, deceitful workers, fashioning themselves into apostles of Christ. |
| [14] | And no marvel; for even Satan fashioneth himself into an angel of light. |
| [15] | It is no great thing therefore if his ministers also fashion themselves as ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works. |
| [16] | I say again, Let no man think me foolish; but if ye do, yet as foolish receive me, that I also may glory a little. |
| [17] | That which I speak, I speak not after the Lord, but as in foolishness, in this confidence of glorying. |
| [18] | Seeing that many glory after the flesh, I will glory also. |
| [19] | For ye bear with the foolish gladly, being wise yourselves. |
| [20] | For ye bear with a man, if he bringeth you into bondage, if he devoureth you, if he taketh you captive, if he exalteth himself, if he smiteth you on the face. |
| [21] | I speak by way of disparagement, as though we had been weak. Yet whereinsoever any is bold (I speak in foolishness), I am bold also. |
| [22] | Are they Hebrews? so am I. Are they Israelites? so am I. Are they the seed of Abraham? so am I. |
| [23] | Are they ministers of Christ? (I speak as one beside himself) I more; in labors more abundantly, in prisons more abundantly, in stripes above measure, in deaths oft. |
| [24] | Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one. |
| [25] | Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day have I been in the deep; |
| [26] | in journeyings often, in perils of rivers, in perils of robbers, in perils from my countrymen, 9 in perils from the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; |
| [27] | in labor and travail, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness. |
| [28] | Besides 10 those things that are without, there is that which presseth upon me daily, anxiety for all the churches. |
| [29] | Who is weak, and I am not weak? who is caused to stumble, and I burn not? |
| [30] | If I must needs glory, I will glory of the things that concern my weakness. |
| [31] | The 11 God and Father of the Lord Jesus, he who is blessed for 12 evermore knoweth that I lie not. |
| [32] | In Damascus the governor 13 under Aretas the king guarded the city of the Damascenes in order to take me: |
| [33] | and through a window was I let down in a basket by the wall, and escaped his hands. |
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