10. Therefore I take pleasure in weaknesses, in insults, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for the sake of Messiah. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
11. I have become a fool – you have compelled me. For I should have been commended by you, for in no respect was I behind the most eminent emissaries, though I am a nobody.
12. Indeed, the signs of an emissary were wrought among you with all endurance, in signs and wonders and powers.
13. For what is there in which you were inferior to other assemblies, except that I myself was not a burden to you? Forgive me this wrong!
14. See, I am ready to come to you for the third time. And I shall not be a burden to you, for I do not seek yours, but you. For the children should not lay up for the parents, but the parents for the children.
15. And I shall most gladly spend and be spent for your lives. If I love you more and more, am I to be loved less?
16. But be it so, I did not burden you. But being crafty, did I catch you with guile?
17. Did I take advantage of you by any of those whom I sent to you?
18. I urged Titus, and sent our brother with him. Did Titus take advantage of you? Did we not walk in the same spirit – not in the same steps?
19. Again, do you think that we defend ourselves to you? We speak before Elohim in Messiah. But all this, beloved, is for your upbuilding.
20. For I fear lest, when I come, I do not find you such as I wish, and I be found by you such as you do not wish – lest there be strife, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, slander, gossip, puffings up, unrests,
21. and lest, when I come again, my Elohim should humble me among you, and I shall mourn for many who have sinned before and have not repented of the uncleanness, and whoring, and indecency which they have practised.