Study Desk

Great is my boldness of speech toward you. Great is my boasting on your behalf. I am filled with comfort. I overflow with joy in all our affliction.

I rejoice that in everything I am of good courage concerning you.

Now I Paul, myself, entreat you by the humility and gentleness of Christ; I who in your presence am lowly among you, but being absent am of good courage toward you.

For I am jealous over you with a godly jealousy. For I married you to one husband, that I might present you as a pure virgin to Christ.

But I am afraid that by any means, as the serpent deceived Eve in his craftiness, so your minds might be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.

For I reckon that I am not at all behind the very best apostles.

But though I am unskilled in speech, yet I am not unskilled in knowledge. No, in every way we have been revealed to you in all things.

I speak by way of disparagement, as though we had been weak. Yet however any is bold (I speak in foolishness), I am bold also.

Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they the seed of Abraham? So am I.

Are they servants of Christ? (I speak as one beside himself) I am more so; in labors more abundantly, in prisons more abundantly, in stripes above measure, in deaths often.

Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is caused to stumble, and I don't burn?

Therefore I take pleasure in weaknesses, in injuries, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ's sake. For when I am weak, then am I strong.

I have become foolish in boasting. You compelled me, for I ought to have been commended by you, for in nothing was I behind the very best apostles, though I am nothing.

Behold, this is the third time I am ready to come to you, and I will not be a burden to you; for I seek not your possessions, but you. For the children ought not to save up for the parents, but the parents for the children.

I will most gladly spend and be spent for your souls. If I love you more abundantly, am I loved the less?

For I am afraid that by any means, when I come, I might find you not the way I want to, and that I might be found by you as you don't desire; that by any means there would be strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, factions, slander, whisperings, proud thoughts, riots;

This is the third time I am coming to you. "At the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word established."

For am I now seeking the favor of men, or of God? Or am I striving to please men? For if I were still pleasing men, I wouldn't be a servant of Christ.

I am afraid for you, that I might have wasted my labor for you.

I beg you, brothers, become as I am, for I also have become as you are. You did me no wrong,