2 Corinthians 11
1WOULD that ye could bear with me in a little folly! Nay, ye do bear with me.
2For I am jealous over you with a godly jealousy; for I espoused you to one husband, that I may present a chaste virgin to Christ.
3But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve by his subtlety, so your minds should be corrupted from your simplicity toward Christ.
4For if indeed he that comes preaches another Jesus, whom we preached not, or if ye receive a different spirit, which ye received not, or a different gospel, which ye accepted not, ye might well bear with it.
5For I reckon that I am in no respect behind these overmuch apostles.
6And though I be rude in speech, yet not in knowledge; but in everything we have been made manifest among all, in respect to you.
7Did I commit an offense in abasing myself that ye might be exalted, because I preached to you the gospel of God without charge.
8I robbed other churches, taking wages of them, in order to do you service.
9And when I was present with you, and in want, I was a charge to no one; for what was lacking to me the brethren who came from Macedonia supplied; and in every thing I kept myself from being burdensome to you, and so will keep myself.
10As the truth of Christ is in me, this boasting shall not be shut up against me in the regions of Achaia.
11Wherefore? Because I love you not? God knows.
12But what I do, and will do, is that I may cut off the occasion of those who desire an occasion, that wherein they boast they may be found even as we.
13For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into apostles of Christ.
14And no wonder; for Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light.
15It is no great thing then, if also his ministers transform themselves as ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works.
16I say again, let no one think me foolish; but if it can not be so, yet receive me even if as foolish, that I too may boast myself a little.
17What I speak, I speak not after the Lord, but as in foolishness, in this confidence of boasting.
18Seeing that many boast after the flesh, I also will boast.
19For ye gladly bear with the foolish, being yourselves wise.
20For ye bear with it, if one brings you into bondage, if one devours you, if one takes you, if one exalts himself, if one smites you on the face.
21I say it as a reproach, that we were weak. But in whatever any one is bold (I say it in foolishness), I also am bold.
22Are they Hebrews? So am I Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they Abraham's seed? So am I.
23Are they ministers of Christ? (I speak as beside myself,) I am more; in labors more abundantly, in stripes above measure, in prisons more abundantly, in deaths often;
24of the Jews five times I received forty stripes save one;
25thrice I was beaten with rods; once I was stoned; thrice I suffered shipwreck; a night and a day I have spent in the deep;
26by journeyings often, by perils of rivers, by perils of robbers, by perils from my countrymen, by perils from the heathen, by perils in the city, by perils in the wilderness, by perils in the sea, by perils among false brethren;
27by weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness.
28Beside those things that are without, there is that which comes upon me daily, the care of all the churches.
29Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is offended, and I do not burn?
30If I must needs boast, I will boast of things which belong to my infirmity.
31God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is blessed forevermore, knows that I lie not.
32In Damascus, the governor under Aretas the king kept guard over the city of the Damascenes, wishing to apprehend me;
33and through a window I was let down in a basket through the wall, and escaped his hands.