2Cor 11
1
Would that you could bear with me in a little foolishness: but indeed you do bear
with me.
2
For I am jealous over you with a 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 should be corrupted from the simplicity and the purity that is toward Christ.
4
For if he who comes preaches another Jesus, whom we did not preach, or [if] you receive
a different spirit, which you did not receive, or a different gospel, which you did
not accept, you do well to bear with [him].
5
For I reckon that I am not a whit behind the very chiefest apostles.
6
But though [I be] rude in speech, yet [am I] not in knowledge; nay, in every way have
we made [this] manifest to you in all things.
7
Or did I commit a sin in abasing myself that you might be exalted, because I preached
to you the gospel of God for nothing?
8
I robbed other churches, taking wages [of them] that I might minister to 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 to 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 knows.
12
But what I do, that I will do, that I may cut off occasion 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 fashions 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 [you 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 you bear with the foolish gladly, being wise [yourselves].
20
For you bear with a man, if he brings you into bondage, if he devours you, if he takes
you [captive], if he exalts himself, if he smites you on the face.
21
I speak by way of disparagement, as though we had been weak. Yet in whatever 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, [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 those things that are without, there is that which presses 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 God and Father of the Lord Jesus, he who is blessed for evermore knows that I
lie not.
32
In Damascus the governor 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.