Dual Panel1I DON'T think it's really a good thing for me to boast at all, but if I must I will go on to visions and revelations of the Lord himself.
2I know a man in Christ who, fourteen years ago, had the experience of being caught up into the third Heaven.
3I don't know whether it was an actual physical experience, only God knows that. All I know is that this man was caught up into paradise. (I repeat, I do not know whether this was a physical happening or not, God alone knows.)
4This man heard words that cannot, and indeed must not, be put into human speech.
5I am proud of an experience like that, but I have made up my mind not to boast of anything personal, except of my weaknesses.
6If I should want to boast I should certainly be no fool, for I should be speaking nothing but the truth. Yet I am not going to do so, for I don't want anyone to think more highly of me than is warranted by what he sees of me and hears from me.
7So tremendous, however, were the revelations that God gave me that, in order to prevent my becoming absurdly conceited, I was given a stabbing painone of Satan's angelsto plague me and effectually stop any conceit.
8Three times I begged the Lord for it to leave me,
9but his reply has been, "My grace is enough for you: for where there is weakness, my power is shown the more completely." Therefore, I have cheerfully made up my mind to be proud of my weaknesses, because they mean a deeper experience of the power of Christ.
10I can even enjoy weaknesses, insults, privations, persecutions and difficulties for Christ's sake. For my very weakness makes me strong in him.
11I have made a fool of myself in this "boasting" business, but you forced me to do it. If only you had had a better opinion of me it would have been quite unnecessary. For I am not really in the least inferior, nobody as I am, to these extraspecial messengers.
12You have had a demonstration of the power God gives to a genuine messenger by his sheer endurance as well as the miracles, signs and works of spiritual power that you saw with your own eyes.
13What makes you feel so inferior to other churches? Is it because I have not allowed you to support me financially? My humblest apologies for this great wrong!
14Now I am all ready to visit you for the third time, and I am still not going to be a burden to you. It is you I wantnot your money. Children don't have to put by their savings for their parents; parents do that for their children.
15Consequently I will roost gladly spend and be spent for your good utterly. Does that mean that the more I love you the less you love me?
16"All right then," I hear you say, "we agree that he himself had none of our money." But are you thinking that I nevertheless was rogue enough to catch you by some trick?
17Just think. Did I make any profit out of the messengers I sent you?
18I asked Titus to go, and sent the brother with him. You don't think Titus made anything out of you, do you? Yet didn't I act in the same spirit as he, and take the same line as he did?
19Are you thinking all this time that I am trying to justify myself in your eyes? Actually I am speaking in Christ before God himself, and my only reason for so doing, my dear friends, is to help you in your spiritual life.
20For I must confess that I am afraid that when I come I shall not perhaps find you as I should like to find you, and that you will not find me quite as you would like me to be. I am afraid of finding arguments, jealousy, illfeeling, divided loyalties, slander, whispering, pride and disharmony.
21When I come again, will God make me feel ashamed of you as I stand among you? Shall I have to grieve over many who have sinned already and are not yet sorry for the impurity, the immorality and the lustfulness of which they are guilty?