5. I do not think that I am the least bit inferior to those very special so-called “apostles” of yours!
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.
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?
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.
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!
10. By Christ's truth in me, I promise that this boast of mine will not be silenced anywhere in all Achaia.
11. Do I say this because I don't love you? God knows I love you!
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.
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.
14. Well, no wonder! Even Satan can disguise himself to look like an angel of light!
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.
16. I repeat: no one should think that I am a fool. But if you do, at least accept me as a fool, so that I will have a little to boast of.