The words of the Bible

II CORINTHIANS 11

The false apostles

1 Oh bear with me a little in my folly! Yes, bear with me.

2 For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy: have espoused you to one husband, Christ, I may present you as a pure virgin.

3 But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, so too are some sort of corrupt your understandings and shall not depart from the simplicity and purity that is in Christ.

4 For if he that comes preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached, or if ye receive another spirit that have not received, or another gospel, which not accepted, it easily enough!

5 For I reckon that in nothing I have been inferior to the most eminent apostles.

6 But though I be rude in speech, yet not in knowledge; before, by all means, that we have shown at all.

7 I have sinned perhaps humbling myself so that you might be exalted, because of grace I preached the gospel of God?

8 I robbed other churches, taking wages from them to serve you;

9 and being present with you, and wanted, no one was heavy; because the brothers came from Macedonia, supplied the measure of my need; and in everything I kept myself, and yet I keep myself from being burdensome unto you.

10 As the truth of Christ is in me, I will not be glorying in the regions of Achaia.

Why 11? Is it because I love you not? God knows.

12 Now, what I do and will do, is to cut off occasion from them which desire occasion; to that wherein they boast they may be found even as we.

13 For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into apostles of Christ.

14 And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light.

15 It is not surprising, then, if also his ministers transform themselves as ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works.

The sufferings of Paul for the sake of the gospel

16 I say again, let no one think me foolish; but if you think so, yet receive me as foolish, that I also may boast a little.

17 I say, not after the Lord, but as in foolishness, in this confidence of glorying.

18 Since many glory after the flesh, I will glory also.

19 For ye are wise, of sound mind tolerais fools.

20 For if anyone enslaves you, if someone devours you, if someone defrauds you, if someone puffed up, if someone strikes you in the face, ye endure.

21 I speak with shame, as if we had been weak; but in what someone is bold, I speak foolishly, I am bold also.

22 Are they Hebrews? me too; Are they Israelites? me too; are descendants of Abraham? me too;

23 are ministers of Christ? I speak as beside myself, I more; much more work; much more prisons; in stripes above measure; in deaths often;

24 of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one.

25 Thrice was I beaten with rods, once I was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day in the deep;

26 in journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils from my countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brothers;

27 In weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fasts often, in cold and nakedness.

28 Beside those things there which cometh upon me daily, the care of all the churches.

29 Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is offended, and I burn not?

30 If I must boast, I will boast in regard to my weakness.

31 The God and Father of the Lord Jesus, who is blessed forever, knows that I lie not.

32 In Damascus the governor under King Aretas guarded the city of the Damascenes to arrest me;

33 and through a window I was let down in a basket by the wall; and escaped his hands.