Letters to the Churches

In this confident boasting of mine, I am not speaking as the Lord would, but as a fool.

Since many are boasting according to the flesh, I too will boast.

For you gladly tolerate fools, since you are so wise.

In fact, you even put up with anyone who enslaves you or exploits you or takes advantage of you or exalts himself or strikes you in the face.

To my shame I concede that we were too weak for that! Speaking as a fool, however, I can match what anyone else dares to boast about.

Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they descendants of Abraham? So am I.

Are they servants of Christ? I am speaking like I am out of my mind, but I am so much more: in harder labor, in more imprisonments, in worse beatings, in frequent danger of death.

Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one.

Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked. I spent a night and a day in the open sea.

In my frequent journeys, I have been in danger from rivers and from bandits, in danger from my countrymen and from the Gentiles, in danger in the city and in the country, in danger on the sea and among false brothers,

in labor and toil and often without sleep, in hunger and thirst and often without food, in cold and exposure.

Apart from these external trials, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches.

Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is led into sin, and I do not burn with grief?

If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness.

The God and Father of the Lord Jesus, who is forever worthy of praise, knows that I am not lying.

In Damascus, the governor under King Aretas secured the city of the Damascenes in order to arrest me.

But I was lowered in a basket through a window in the wall and escaped his grasp.

I must go on boasting. Although there is nothing to gain, I will go on to visions and revelations from the Lord.

I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven. Whether it was in the body or out of it I do not know, but God knows.

And I know that this man—whether in the body or out of it I do not know, but God knows—

was caught up to Paradise. The things he heard were too sacred for words, things that man is not permitted to tell.

I will boast about such a man, but I will not boast about myself, except in my weaknesses.

Even if I wanted to boast, I would not be a fool, because I would be speaking the truth. But I refrain, so no one will credit me with more than he sees in me or hears from me,

or because of these surpassingly great revelations. So to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me.

Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me.