1. I wish you would be patient with me even when I am a little foolish. But you are already doing that.
2. I am jealous over you. And this jealousy comes from God. I promised to give you to Christ. He must be your only husband. I want to give you to Christ to be his pure bride.
3. But I am afraid that your minds will be led away from your true and pure following of Christ. This might happen just as Eve was tricked by the snake with his evil ways.
4. You are very patient with anyone who comes to you and preaches a different Jesus than the one we preached. You are very willing to accept a spirit or Good News that is different from the Spirit and Good News that you received from us.
5. I do not think that those “great apostles” are any better than I am.
6. I may not be a trained speaker, but I do have knowledge. We have shown this to you clearly in every way.
7. I preached God’s Good News to you without pay. I made myself unimportant to make you important. Do you think that was wrong?
8. I accepted pay from other churches. I took their money so that I could serve you.
9. If I needed something when I was with you, I did not trouble any of you. The brothers who came from Macedonia gave me all that I needed. I did not allow myself to depend on you in any way. And I will never depend on you.
10. No one in Southern Greece will stop me from bragging about that. I say this with the truth of Christ in me.
11. And why do I not depend on you? Do you think it is because I do not love you? No. God knows that I love you.
12. And I will keep on doing what I am doing now. I will continue because I want to stop those people from having a reason to brag. They would like to say that the work they brag about is the same as ours.
13. Such men are not true apostles. They are workers who lie. And they change themselves to look like apostles of Christ.
14. This does not surprise us. Even Satan changes himself to look like an angel of light.
15. So it does not surprise us if Satan’s servants also make themselves look like servants who work for what is right. But in the end they will be punished for the things they do.