8. For we do not want you to be ignorant, brothers, concerning our affliction that happened in the province of Asia, that we were burdened to an extraordinary degree, beyond our strength, so that we were in despair even of living.
9. But we ourselves had the sentence of death in ourselves, so that we would not be putting confidence in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead,
10. who delivered us from so great a risk of death, and will deliver us, in whom we have put our hope that he will also deliver us again,
11. while you also join in helping on our behalf by prayer, so that thanks may be given on our behalf by many persons for this gracious gift given to us through the help of many.
12. For our reason for boasting is this: the testimony of our conscience that we conducted ourselves in the world, and especially toward you, in holiness and purity of motive from God, not in merely human wisdom, but by the grace of God.
13. For we are not writing anything else to you except what you can read or also understand. But I hope that you will understand completely,
14. just as you have also understood us in part, that we are your reason for boasting, just as you are also ours in the day of our Lord Jesus.
15. And with this confidence, I was wanting to come to you previously, in order that you may have a second proof of my goodwill,
16. and through you to go to Macedonia, and to come to you again from Macedonia, and to be sent on my way by you to Judea.
17. Therefore, when I was wanting to do this, perhaps then was I making use of vacillation? Or was I deciding what I was deciding according to the flesh, in order that with me my “yes” may be “yes” and my “no” may be “no” at the same time?
18. But God is faithful, so that our word to you is not “yes” and “no.”