12. I did it, because they do the same, and because I knew that if I did differently, they would turn that against me.
13. For these men are false apostles, their work is not honest, they transform themselves indeed into apostles of the Christ.
14. But remember that Satan himself can appear as an angel of light,
15. and his servants, be sure, will do the same; if they can remain hidden, they will be in the guise of servants of this new perfection. Beware of them, and listen to my defence. Not one of them can say that any of the grounds I have for your confidence and trust is false or untrue.My boasting none can refute, no one in Achaia can gainsay it.
16-18. Call me then foolish, if I boast, but hear me for once whilst I enumerate my own deeds in the apostleship and like them boast of my extreme spirituality and the privileges and powers conferred on me by God. I speak as a fool, and not according to the Lord. Yet hear me.
19. Gentleness and forbearance, recollect, are a mark of your profession.
20. And therefore you are gentle, you do not retaliate, when men make prisoners of you, when they make you feed and support them, when they take every advantage of you, and even are openly insolent and overbearing towards you. If they have done this, the dishonour is mine too, if I have been weak in my behaviour. But I will be “weak” no longer. If others boast, I will boast too.
21. And if others are bold, then I will outface them, and override them, and meet them on their own ground — yet in all this not as a wise man, but as a fool. Yes, I allow it, as a fool, therefore imitate me not, but continue in your habitual forbearance towards the foolishness of the world, whilst I display my own error by grappling with these traitors on their own ground.
22. Are they Israelites? So am I! Are they genuine Hebrews? So am I! Are they Abraham's true and chosen seed? So am I! And are they servants of the Christ? I too am his servant in a more abundant and unquestionable manner.
23. And as to those remarkable evidences they show of all the persecutions and cruelties they have endured according to the scriptures in the service of the suffering Messiah, I too bring forward the catalogue of my afflictions, and boldly claim a more excessive degree of martyrdom than they, more labours than they (I speak as a fool), more imprisonments, more blows, more hair-breadth escapes than they.
24. Have I not been five times scourged by the Jews? That is more often than any of them.