Study Desk

I have become foolish; you yourselves compelled me. For I ought to have been commended by you, for in no respect was I inferior to the most-eminent apostles, even if I am nothing.

Here for this third time I am ready to come to you, and I will not be a burden to you; for I do not seek what is yours, but you. For children ought not to save up for their parents, but parents for their children.

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

But be that as it may, I did not burden you myself. Nevertheless, crafty fellow that I am, I took you in by deceit.

For I am afraid that perhaps when I come I may find you to be not what I wish and may be found by you to be not what you wish; that perhaps there will be strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, slanders, gossip, arrogance, disturbances.

I am afraid that when I come again my God may humiliate me before you, and I may mourn over many of those who have sinned in the past and not repented of the impurity, sexual immorality, and sensuality which they have practiced.

This is the third time I am coming to you. By the mouth of two or three witnesses every matter shall be confirmed.

For this reason I am writing these things while absent, so that when present I need not use severity, in accordance with the authority which the Lord gave me for building up and not for tearing down.

For am I now seeking the favor of men, or of God? Or am I striving to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a slave of Christ.

For I make known to you, brothers, that the gospel which I am proclaiming as good news is not according to man.

(Now in what I am writing to you, I assure you before God that I am not lying!)

And what I am saying is this: the Law, which came 430 years later, does not invalidate a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to abolish the promise.

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

But it is good always to be zealously sought in a commendable manner, and not only when I am present with you.

My children, with whom I am again in labor until Christ is formed in you—

but I could wish to be present with you now and to change my tone, because I am perplexed about you.

But I, brothers, if I still preach circumcision, why am I still persecuted? Then the stumbling block of the cross would have been abolished.

See with what large letters I am writing to you with my own hand!

This mystery is great, but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church.

for which I am an ambassador in chains—so that in proclaiming it I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak.