23  Are 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. 24  From the Jews five times have I received forty stripes, save one. 25  Thrice have I been scourged, once I have been stoned, three times I have suffered shipwreck, a night and day I passed in the deep: 26  in 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; 27  in labour and toil, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness. 28  Besides those things that are without, the crowd of cares pressing on me daily, the burden of all the assemblies. 29  Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is stumbled, and I burn not? 30  If it is needful to boast, I will boast in the things which concern my infirmity. 31  The God and Father of the Lord Jesus knows—he who is blessed for ever—that I do not lie. 32  In Damascus the ethnarch of Aretas the king kept the city of the Damascenes shut up, wishing to take me; 33  and through a window in a basket I was let down by the wall, and escaped his hands.