2 Corinthians 11:1-33
11 I wish YOU would put up with me in some little unreasonableness.+ But, in fact, YOU are putting up with me!
2 For I am jealous over YOU with a godly jealousy,+ for I personally promised YOU in marriage+ to one husband+ that I might present YOU as a chaste+ virgin to the Christ.+
3 But I am afraid that somehow, as the serpent seduced Eve+ by its cunning, YOUR minds might be corrupted+ away from the sincerity and the chastity that are due the Christ.+
4 For, as it is, if someone comes and preaches a Jesus other than the one we preached,+ or YOU receive a spirit other than what YOU received,+ or good news+ other than what YOU accepted, YOU easily put up [with him].+
5 For I consider that I have not in a single thing proved inferior+ to YOUR superfine+ apostles.
6 But even if I am unskilled in speech,+ I certainly am not in knowledge;+ but in every way we manifested [it] to YOU in all things.+
7 Or did I commit a sin by humbling myself+ that YOU might be exalted, because without cost+ I gladly declared the good news of God to YOU?
8 Other congregations I robbed by accepting provisions in order to minister to YOU;+
9 and yet when I was present with YOU and I fell in need, I did not become a burden to a single one,+ for the brothers that came from Mac·e·doʹni·a+ abundantly supplied my deficiency. Yes, in every way I kept myself unburdensome to YOU and will keep myself so.+
10 It is a truth+ of Christ in my case that no stop shall be put to this boasting+ of mine in the regions of A·chaʹia.
11 For what reason? Because I do not love YOU? God knows [I do].+
12 Now what I am doing I will still do,+ that I may cut off the pretext from those who are wanting a pretext for being found equal to us in the office of which they boast.
13 For such men are false apostles, deceitful workers,+ transforming themselves into apostles of Christ.+
14 And no wonder, for Satan himself keeps transforming himself into an angel of light.+
15 It is therefore nothing great if his ministers+ also keep transforming themselves into ministers of righteousness. But their end shall be according to their works.+
16 I say again, Let no man think I am unreasonable. Still, if YOU really do, accept me even if as unreasonable, that I too may do some little boasting.+
17 What I speak I speak, not after the Lord’s example, but as in unreasonableness, in this cocksureness peculiar to boasting.+
18 Since many are boasting according to the flesh,+ I too will boast.
19 For YOU gladly put up with the unreasonable persons, seeing YOU are reasonable.
20 In fact, YOU put up with whoever enslaves YOU,+ whoever devours [what YOU have], whoever grabs [what YOU have], whoever exalts himself over [YOU], whoever strikes YOU in the face.+
21 I say this to [our] dishonor, as though our position had been weak.
But if anyone else acts bold in something—I am talking unreasonably+—I too am acting bold in it.
22 Are they Hebrews? I am one also.+ Are they Israelites? I am one also. Are they Abraham’s seed? I am also.+
23 Are they ministers of Christ? I reply like a madman, I am more outstandingly one:+ in labors more plentifully,+ in prisons more plentifully,+ in blows to an excess, in near-deaths often.+
24 By Jews I five times received forty strokes+ less one,
25 three times I was beaten with rods,+ once I was stoned,+ three times I experienced shipwreck,+ a night and a day I have spent in the deep;
26 in journeys often, in dangers from rivers, in dangers from highwaymen,+ in dangers from [my own] race,+ in dangers from the nations,+ in dangers in the city,+ in dangers in the wilderness, in dangers at sea, in dangers among false brothers,
27 in labor and toil, in sleepless nights+ often, in hunger and thirst,+ in abstinence from food+ many times, in cold and nakedness.
28 Besides those things of an external kind, there is what rushes in on me from day to day, the anxiety for all the congregations.+
29 Who is weak,+ and I am not weak? Who is stumbled, and I am not incensed?
30 If boasting there must be, I will boast+ of the things having to do with my weakness.
31 The God and Father of the Lord Jesus, even the One who is to be praised* forever, knows I am not lying.
32 In Damascus the governor* under A·reʹtas the king was guarding the city of the Dam·a·scenesʹ to seize me,+
33 but through a window in the wall I was lowered in a wicker basket+ and escaped his hands.
