2 Corinthians - Chapter 12

¹ I am boasting because I have to. Not that it does any good, but I will move on to visions and revelations from the Lord.

² I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago -- still in the body? I do not know; or out of the body? I do not know: God knows -- was caught up right into the third heaven.

³ And I know that this man -- still in the body? or outside the body? I do not know, God knows-

⁴ was caught up into Paradise and heard words said that cannot and may not be spoken by any human being.

⁵ On behalf of someone like that I am willing to boast, but I am not going to boast on my own behalf except of my weaknesses;

⁶ and then, if I do choose to boast I shall not be talking like a fool because I shall be speaking the truth. But I will not go on in case anybody should rate me higher than he sees and hears me to be, because of the exceptional greatness of the revelations.

⁷ Wherefore, so that I should not get above myself, I was given a thorn in the flesh, a messenger from Satan to batter me and prevent me from getting above myself.

⁸ About this, I have three times pleaded with the Lord that it might leave me;

⁹ but he has answered me, 'My grace is enough for you: for power is at full stretch in weakness.' It is, then, about my weaknesses that I am happiest of all to boast, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me;

¹⁰ and that is why I am glad of weaknesses, insults, constraints, persecutions and distress for Christ's sake. For it is when I am weak that I am strong.

¹¹ I have turned into a fool, but you forced me to it. It is you that should have been commending me; those super-apostles had no advantage over me, even if I am nothing at all.

¹² All the marks characteristic of a true apostle have been at work among you: complete perseverance, signs, marvels, demonstrations of power.

¹³ Is there any way in which you have been given less than the rest of the churches, except that I did not make myself a burden to you? Forgive me for this unfairness!

¹⁴ Here I am, ready to come to you for the third time and I am not going to be a burden on you: it is not your possessions that I want, but yourselves. Children are not expected to save up for their parents, but parents for their children,

¹⁵ and I am more than glad to spend what I have and to be spent for the sake of your souls. Is it because I love you so much more, that I am loved the less?

¹⁶ All right, then; I did not make myself a burden to you, but, trickster that I am, I caught you by trickery.

¹⁷ Have I taken advantage of you through any of the people I have sent to you?

¹⁸ Titus came at my urging, and I sent his companion with him. Did Titus take advantage of you? Can you deny that he and I were following the guidance of the same Spirit and were on the same tracks?

¹⁹ All this time you have been thinking that we have been pleading our own cause before you; no, we have been speaking in Christ and in the presence of God -- and all, dear friends, to build you up.

²⁰ I am afraid that in one way or another, when I come, I may find you different from what I should like you to be, and you may find me what you would not like me to be; so that in one way or the other there will be rivalry, jealousy, bad temper, quarrels, slander, gossip, arrogance and disorders;

²¹ and when I come again, my God may humiliate me in front of you and I shall be grieved by all those who sinned in the past and have still not repented of the impurities and sexual immorality and debauchery that they have committed.

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