2 Corinthians 11:4–15

⁴For you gladly tolerate anyone who comes to you and preaches a different Jesus, not the one we preached; and you accept a spirit and a gospel completely different from the Spirit and the gospel you received from us!

⁵I do not think that I am the least bit inferior to those very special so-called “apostles” of yours! ⁶Perhaps I am an amateur in speaking, but certainly not in knowledge; we have made this clear to you at all times and in all conditions.

⁷I did not charge you a thing when I preached the Good News of God to you; I humbled myself in order to make you important. Was that wrong of me? ⁸While I was working among you, I was paid by other churches. I was robbing them, so to speak, in order to help you. ^9*And during the time I was with you I did not bother you for help when I needed money; the brothers and sisters who came from Macedonia brought me everything I needed. As in the past, so in the future: I will never be a burden to you! ¹⁰By Christ’s truth in me, I promise that this boast of mine will not be silenced anywhere in all Achaia. ¹¹Do I say this because I don’t love you? God knows I love you!

¹²I will go on doing what I am doing now, in order to keep those other “apostles” from having any reason for boasting and saying that they work in the same way that we do. ¹³Those men are not true apostles—they are false apostles, who lie about their work and disguise themselves to look like real apostles of Christ. ¹⁴Well, no wonder! Even Satan can disguise himself to look like an angel of light! ¹⁵So it is no great thing if his servants disguise themselves to look like servants of righteousness. In the end they will get exactly what their actions deserve.