12. And we labor, working with our own hands. We are slandered, and so we bless. We suffer and endure persecution.
13. We are cursed, and so we pray. We have become like the refuse of this world, like the reside of everything, even until now.
14. I am not writing these things in order to confound you, but in order to admonish you, as my dearest sons.
15. For you might have ten thousand instructors in Christ, but not so many fathers. For in Christ Jesus, through the Gospel, I have begotten you.
16. Therefore, I beg you, be imitators of me, just as I am of Christ.
17. For this reason, I have sent you Timothy, who is my dearest son, and who is faithful in the Lord. He will remind you of my ways, which are in Christ Jesus, just as I teach everywhere, in every church.
18. Certain persons have become inflated in thinking that I would not return to you.
19. But I will return to you soon, if the Lord is willing. And I will consider, not the words of those who are inflated, but the virtue.
20. For the kingdom of God is not in words, but in virtue.
21. What would you prefer? Should I return to you with a rod, or with charity and a spirit of meekness?