1. I wish that you could bear with me a little in my folly: and indeed bear with me.
2. For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy: for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ.
3. But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his cunning, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.
4. For if he that comes preaches another Jesus, whom we have not preached, or if you receive another spirit, which you have not received, or another gospel, which you have not accepted, you might well bear with him.
5. For I suppose I was not the least behind the very chief apostles.
6. But though I be unskilled in speech, yet not in knowledge; but we have been thoroughly made manifest among you in all things.
7. Have I committed an offense in humbling myself that you might be exalted, because I have preached to you the gospel of God freely?
8. I robbed other churches, taking wages of them, to do you service.
9. And when I was present with you, and in want, I was chargeable to no man: for that which was lacking to me the brethren who came from Macedonia supplied: and in all things I have kept myself from being burdensome unto you, and so will I keep myself.
10. As the truth of Christ is in me, no man shall stop me of this boasting in the regions of Achaia.
11. Why? because I love you not? God knows.