¹⁶Again I say, Let not any one think me to be a fool; but if otherwise, receive me then even as a fool, that I also may boast myself some little. ¹⁷What I speak I do not speak according to the Lord, but as in folly, in this confidence of boasting. ¹⁸Since many boast according to flesh, I also will boast. ¹⁹For ye bear fools readily, being wise. ²⁰For ye bear if any one bring you into bondage, if any one devour you, if any one get your money, if any one exalt himself, if any one beat you on the face. ²¹I speak as to dishonour, as though we had been weak; but wherein any one is daring, (I speak in folly,) I also am daring.

²²Are they Hebrews? I also. Are they Israelites? I also. Are they seed of Abraham? I also. ²³Are they ministers of Christ? (I speak as being beside myself) I above measure so; in labours exceedingly abundant, in stripes to excess, in prisons exceedingly abundant, in deaths oft. ²⁴From the Jews five times have I received forty stripes, save one. ²⁵Thrice have I been scourged, once I have been stoned, three times I have suffered shipwreck, a night and day I passed in the deep: ²⁶in journeyings often, in perils of rivers, in perils of robbers, in perils from my own race, in perils from the nations, in perils in the city, in perils in the desert, in perils on the sea, in perils among false brethren; ²⁷in labour and toil, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness. ²⁸Besides those things that are without, the crowd of cares pressing on me daily, the burden of all the assemblies. ²⁹Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is stumbled, and I burn not? ³⁰If it is needful to boast, I will boast in the things which concern my infirmity. ³¹The God and Father of the Lord Jesus knows—he who is blessed for ever—that I do not lie. ³²In Damascus the ethnarch of Aretas the king kept the city of the Damascenes shut up, wishing to take me; ³³and through a window in a basket I was let down by the wall, and escaped his hands.

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