2 Corinthians / Paul's Hardships as Apostolic Credentials

Paul's Hardships as Apostolic Credentials

2 Corinthians 11:16-33

Chapter 11

¹⁶ Again I say, let no one think me foolish—if not indeed, even accept me as foolish, so that I too may boast a little. ¹⁷ I speak what I do not speak according to the Lord, but as in foolishness, in this confidence of boasting. ¹⁸ Since many boast according to the flesh, I will boast also. ¹⁹ For you gladly put up with fools, since you are wise. ²⁰ For you put up with it if someone enslaves you, if someone devours you, if someone takes you captive, if someone exalts himself, if someone strikes you in the face. ²¹ To my shame I say it: since we have been weak. In whatever anyone dares to do—I speak in foolishness—I dare to do it too. ²² Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they the seed of Abraham? So am I. ²³ They are ministers of Christ; I speak out of my mind, but beyond them—in labors more abundantly, in prisons more abundantly, in beatings beyond measure, in deaths often— ²⁴ From the Jews five times I received forty lashes less one. ²⁵ Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, a night and a day I have spent in the deep. ²⁶ often on journeys, dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from my race, dangers from Gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the wilderness, dangers at sea, dangers from false brothers, ²⁷ In toil and hardship, in sleepless nights often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness. ²⁸ without those outside things, the daily pressure on me, the care for all the churches. ²⁹ Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is caused to stumble, and I do not burn? ³⁰ If boasting is necessary, I will boast of the things that show my weakness. ³¹ The God and Father of the Lord Jesus knows—the one who is blessed forever—that I do not lie. ³² In Damascus, the ethnarch of King Aretas was guarding the city of the Damascenes in order to seize me, ³³ and through a window in a basket I was let down by the wall, and I escaped his hands.