Dual PanelPaul speaks as a fool
1I SHOULD like you to bear with me in a little foolishness; please bear with me.
2I am jealous for you, with the jealousy of God; for I betrothed you to Christ, thinking to present you as a chaste virgin to her true and only husband.
3Now I am afraid that, as the serpent in his cunning seduced Eve, your thoughts may be corrupted and you may lose your single-hearted devotion to Christ.
4For if some newcomer proclaims another Jesus, not the Jesus whom we proclaimed, or if you receive a spirit different from the Spirit already given to you, or a gospel different from the gospel you have already accepted, you put up with that well enough.
5I am not aware of being in any way inferior to those super-apostles.
6I may be no speaker, but knowledge I do have; at all times we have made known to you the full truth.
7Or was this my offence, that I made no charge for preaching the gospel of God, humbling myself in order to exalt you?
8I robbed other churches -- by accepting support from them to serve you.
9If I ran short while I was with you, I did not become a charge on anyone; my needs were fully met by friends from Macedonia; I made it a rule, as I always shall, never to be a burden to you.
10As surely as the truth of Christ is in me, nothing shall bar me from boasting about this throughout Achaia.
11Why? Because I do not love you? God knows I do.
12And I shall go on doing as I am doing now, to cut the ground from under those who would seize any chance to put their vaunted apostleship on the same level as ours.
13Such people are sham apostles, confidence tricksters masquerading as apostles of Christ.
14And no wonder! Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light,
15so it is easy enough for his agents to masquerade as agents of good. But their fate will match their deeds.
16I repeat: let no one take me for a fool; but if you must, then give me the privilege of a fool, and let me have my little boast like others.
17In boasting so confidently I am not speaking like a Christian, but like a fool.
18So many people brag of their earthly distinctions that I shall do so too.
19How gladly you put up with fools, being yourselves so wise!
20If someone tyrannizes over you, exploits you, gets you in his clutches, puts on airs, and hits you in the face, you put up with it.
21And you call me a weakling! I admit the reproach. But if there is to be bravado (and I am still speaking as a fool), I can indulge in it too.
22Are they Hebrews? So am I. Israelites? So am I. Abraham's descendants? So am I.
23Are they servants of Christ? I am mad to speak like this, but I can outdo them: more often overworked, more often imprisoned, scourged more severely, many a time face to face with death.
24Five times the Jews have given me the thirty-nine strokes;
25three times I have been beaten with rods; once I was stoned; three times I have been shipwrecked, and for twenty-four hours I was adrift on the open sea.
26I have been constantly on the road; I have met dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from my fellow-countrymen, dangers from foreigners, dangers in the town, dangers in the wilderness, dangers at sea, dangers from false Christians.
27I have toiled and drudged and often gone without sleep; I have been hungry and thirsty and have often gone without food; I have suffered from cold and exposure.
28Apart from these external things, there is the responsibility that weighs on me every day, my anxious concern for all the churches.
29Is anyone weak? I share his weakness. If anyone brings about the downfall of another, does my heart not burn with anger?
30If boasting there must be, I will boast of the things that show up my weakness.
31He who is blessed for ever, the God and Father of the Lord Jesus, knows that what I say is true.
32When I was in Damascus, the commissioner of King Aretas kept the city under observation to have me arrested;
33and I was let down in a basket, through a window in the wall, and so escaped his clutches.