1
I wish you would bear with me in a little foolishness. Indeed, bear with me.
2
For I am jealous over you with a jealousy from Elohim, for I betrothed you to one ish, to present a pure virgin to the Anointed.
3
But I fear lest somehow, just as the serpent deceived Chavah through his craftiness, your minds might be corrupted away from the simplicity and purity toward the Anointed.
4
For if the one who comes proclaims another Yahushua whom we did not proclaim, or you receive a different ruach which you did not receive, or a different besorah which you did not accept, you bear with it well enough.
5
For I reckon that I am lacking in nothing compared with the exceedingly great emissaries.
6
But even if I am untrained in speech, yet not in knowledge. Rather, in every way we made this manifest among all toward you.
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Or did I commit a sin by humbling myself so that you might be exalted, because freely I proclaimed the Besorah of Elohim to you?
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I stripped other assemblies, receiving wages for service toward you.
9
And when present with you and lacking, I burdened no one, for the brothers coming from Macedonia supplied what I lacked. And in everything I kept myself from being a burden to you, and I shall keep myself so.
10
The truth of the Anointed is in me: this boasting shall not be stopped toward me in the regions of Achaia.
11
Why? Because I do not love you? Elohim knows.
12
But what I do I shall also continue to do, so that I may cut off the opportunity of those desiring an opportunity, so that in what they boast, they may be found just as we are.
13
For such men are false emissaries, deceitful workers, disguising themselves as emissaries of the Anointed.
14
And no wonder, for the adversary himself disguises himself as a messenger of light.
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Therefore it is no great thing if his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness, whose end shall be according to their works.
16
Again I say: let no one think me foolish. But if otherwise, receive me even as foolish, so that I also may boast a little.
17
What I speak I do not speak according to the Master in this confidence of boasting, but as in foolishness.
18
Since many boast according to flesh, I also shall boast.
19
For being wise, you gladly bear with fools.
20
For you bear if someone enslaves you, if someone devours you, if someone takes from you, if someone exalts himself, if someone strikes you in the face.
21
To our shame I say that we were too weak for that. But whatever anyone dares— I speak in foolishness— I also dare.
22
Are they Ivrim? I also. Are they Yisra’elites? I also. Are they Seed of Avraham? I also.
23
Are they servants of the Anointed? I speak as one beside himself— I am more: in labors more abundantly, in imprisonments more abundantly, in beatings beyond measure, in deaths often.
24
From the Yehudim five times I received forty lashes minus one.
25
Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked. A night and a day I spent in the deep.
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In journeys often, in dangers from rivers, in dangers from robbers, in dangers from my own people, in dangers from the nations, in dangers in the city, in dangers in the wilderness, in dangers at sea, in dangers among false brothers,
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in labor and hardship, in sleeplessness often, in hunger and thirst, in fasting often, in cold and nakedness.
28
Apart from the things outside, there is the daily pressure upon me: the care of all the assemblies.
29
Who is weak and I am not weak? Who is caused to stumble and I do not burn?
30
If it is necessary to boast, I shall boast in the things of my weakness.
31
The Elohim and Father of the Master Yahushua, the One blessed to the ages, knows that I am not lying.
32
In Damascus, the governor under King Aretas was guarding the city of the Damascenes to seize me,
33
and through a window in a basket I was lowered through the wall and escaped his hands.