2 CORINTHIANS Chapter 11 (GNB)

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11:1   I wish you would tolerate me, even when I am a bit foolish. Please do!

11:2   I am jealous for you, just as God is; you are like a pure virgin whom I have promised in marriage to one man only, Christ himself.

11:3   I am afraid that your minds will be corrupted and that you will abandon your full and pure devotion to Christ---in the same way that Eve was deceived by the snake's clever lies.

11:4   For 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!

11:5   I do not think that I am the least bit inferior to those very special so-called "apostles" of yours!

11:6   Perhaps 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.

11:7   I 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?

11:8   While I was working among you, I was paid by other churches. I was robbing them, so to speak, in order to help you.

11:9   And during the time I was with you I did not bother you for help when I needed money; the believers 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!

11:10   By Christ's truth in me, I promise that this boast of mine will not be silenced anywhere in all of Achaia.

11:11   Do I say this because I don't love you? God knows I love you!

11:12   I 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.

11:13   Those men are not true apostles---they are false apostles, who lie about their work and disguise themselves to look like real apostles of Christ.

11:14   Well, no wonder! Even Satan can disguise himself to look like an angel of light!

11:15   So 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.

11:16   I repeat: no one should think that I am a fool. But if you do, at least accept me as a fool, just so I will have a little to boast of.

11:17   Of course what I am saying now is not what the Lord would have me say; in this matter of boasting I am really talking like a fool.

11:18   But since there are so many who boast for merely human reasons, I will do the same.

11:19   You yourselves are so wise, and so you gladly tolerate fools!

11:20   You tolerate anyone who orders you around or takes advantage of you or traps you or looks down on you or slaps you in the face.

11:21   I am ashamed to admit that we were too timid to do those things! But if anyone dares to boast about something---I am talking like a fool---I will be just as daring.

11:22   Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they Abraham's descendants? So am I.

11:23   Are they Christ's servants? I sound like a madman---but I am a better servant than they are! I have worked much harder, I have been in prison more times, I have been whipped much more, and I have been near death more often.

11:24   Five times I was given the thirty-nine lashes by the Jews;

11:25   three times I was whipped by the Romans; and once I was stoned. I have been in three shipwrecks, and once I spent twenty-four hours in the water.

11:26   In my many travels I have been in danger from floods and from robbers, in danger from my own people and from Gentiles; there have been dangers in the cities, dangers in the wilds, dangers on the high seas, and dangers from false friends.

11:27   There has been work and toil; often I have gone without sleep; I have been hungry and thirsty; I have often been without enough food, shelter, or clothing.

11:28   And not to mention other things, every day I am under the pressure of my concern for all the churches.

11:29   When someone is weak, then I feel weak too; when someone is led into sin, I am filled with distress.

11:30   If I must boast, I will boast about things that show how weak I am.

11:31   The God and Father of the Lord Jesus---blessed be his name forever!---knows that I am not lying.

11:32   When I was in Damascus, the governor under King Aretas placed guards at the city gates to arrest me.

11:33   But I was let down in a basket through an opening in the wall and escaped from him.

CHAPTER ENDS