2 Corinthians 11

¹I wish you would bear with me in a little foolishness—but indeed, you do bear with me. ²For I am jealous for you with God's own jealousy, for I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ. ³But I am afraid that, as the serpent deceived Eve by its cunning, your minds may be corrupted away from the sincerity and purity that are directed toward Christ. ⁴For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus whom we did not proclaim, or you receive a different spirit that you did not receive, or a different good news that you did not accept, you put up with it well enough. ⁵For I consider that I am in no way inferior to the super-apostles. ⁶Even if I am unskilled in speech, I am not in knowledge; rather, in every way we have made this plain to you in all things.

⁷Or did I commit a sin by humbling myself so that you might be exalted, because I proclaimed the good news of God to you free of charge? ⁸I robbed other assemblies by taking wages from them for your service, ⁹and when I was present with you and in need, I was not a burden to anyone; for the brothers who came from Macedonia supplied my need, and in everything I kept myself from being a burden to you, and I will keep doing so. ¹⁰As the truth of Christ is in me, this boasting of mine will not be silenced in the regions of Achaia. ¹¹Why? Because I do not love you? God knows.

¹²But what I do I will keep doing, so that I may cut off the opportunity from those who want an opportunity to be found our equals in what they boast about. ¹³For such people are false apostles, deceitful workers, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. ¹⁴And no wonder, for Satan himself disguises himself as an angel of light. ¹⁵So it is no great thing if his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. Their end will be according to their deeds.

¹⁶I say again, let no one think me a fool. But if you do, then receive me even as a fool, so that I too may boast a little. ¹⁷What I am saying, I am not saying according to the Lord but as in foolishness, in this confidence of boasting. ¹⁸Since many boast according to the flesh, I too will boast. ¹⁹For you gladly bear with fools, being wise yourselves! ²⁰For you bear with it if anyone enslaves you, if anyone devours you, if anyone takes from you, if anyone puts on airs, if anyone strikes you in the face. ²¹To my shame I say it: we have been weak! But in whatever anyone dares—I am speaking in foolishness—I dare also.

²²Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they Abraham's offspring? So am I. ²³Are they servants of Christ? I am speaking as one out of his mind: I am more. In labors far more, in imprisonments far more, in beatings beyond measure, near death often. ²⁴Five times I received from the Jews forty lashes minus one; ²⁵three times I was beaten with rods; once I was stoned; three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I have spent in the open sea; ²⁶on frequent journeys, in dangers from rivers, dangers from bandits, dangers from my own people, dangers from Gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the wilderness, dangers at sea, dangers among false brothers; ²⁷in labor and hardship, in sleepless nights often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness. ²⁸Apart from these external things, there is the daily pressure on me, my anxiety for all the assemblies. ²⁹Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to stumble, and I do not burn?

³⁰If I must boast, I will boast of the things of my weakness. ³¹The God and Father of the Lord Jesus, who is blessed forever, knows that I am not lying. ³²In Damascus the ethnarch under King Aretas was guarding the city of the Damascenes in order to seize me, ³³and I was let down in a basket through a window in the wall and escaped his hands.

Translation notes 17

11:1 — “You do bear with me.” The Greek form can be a statement or a command (“do bear with me!”). The draft prints the statement.

11:2 — “Jealous”; “one husband.” Paul acts as the father who arranges his daughter's marriage; the community is the bride, Christ the husband. “God's own jealousy” is literally “a jealousy of God.” The gendered image is retained.

11:3 — “Sincerity and purity.” “Sincerity” is the word rendered “generosity” in chapters 8–9; its basic sense is singleness. The Greek base includes “and purity”; the Byzantine text omits it. Genesis 3 is recalled without naming Adam.

11:4 — “You put up with it well enough.” The Greek base has a present tense, “you bear with it well,” which the context makes ironic. The Tregelles and Byzantine texts have a past form, which gives the unreal condition “you would have put up with it well enough.”

11:5 — “Super-apostles.” The Greek adds a word meaning “exceedingly” to “apostles.” It may be Paul's sarcastic name for the rival teachers of verses 4 and 13, or a reference to the Jerusalem apostles with whom the rivals compared him. The draft prints one phrase for both occurrences (12:11) without settling the referent.

11:6 — “Unskilled in speech.” The word describes an amateur or layperson in contrast with a trained professional, here a trained orator.

11:7–9 — “Robbed”; “wages”; “a burden.” “Robbed” and “wages” are military words, plunder and a soldier's pay, used with deliberate exaggeration. The verb rendered “a burden” at the start of 11:9 and at 12:13–14 is a rare compound whose root means to grow numb; in Paul it means to be a dead weight on someone. “From being a burden” later in 11:9 renders an adjective, “not burdensome,” from the weight family used at 1:8, 5:4, and 12:16 (“weigh down”).

11:13–15 — “Disguising.” One verb three times; it means to change outward form. “Angel of light” uses the same word as “messenger” in 12:7.

11:16–21 — “Fool”; “this confidence of boasting.” Paul adopts the role of a fool to boast on his rivals' terms. Verse 20 lists what the Corinthians tolerate from those rivals; “enslaves” keeps the ownership word, and “takes from you” supplies an object for a bare verb that could also mean “takes you in.” Verse 21 is usually read as sarcasm: Paul was “too weak” to treat them as the rivals do. The Greek's “as though we have been weak” can also be read as a plain concession. In verse 12 the purpose clause “to be found our equals” may instead be Paul's own aim in cutting off the opportunity.

11:22 — “Abraham's offspring.” Literally “seed of Abraham,” as in John 8.

11:23 — “Near death often.” Literally “in deaths often.”

11:24 — “Forty lashes minus one.” The synagogue punishment of Deuteronomy 25:3, reduced by one to avoid exceeding the limit.

11:25 — “Beaten with rods.” A Roman punishment; Acts 16:22 records one instance. Acts records none of the three shipwrecks; the shipwreck of Acts 27 is later than this letter. The stoning is presumably that of Acts 14:19, the only one Acts records. “The open sea” is literally “the deep.”

11:26 — “My own people”; “Gentiles.” Literally dangers “from race” and “from nations,” as in Acts.

11:28 — “These external things”; “the daily pressure.” The first phrase can also mean “the things I leave unmentioned.” The Greek base has a word for pressure or the crowd of concerns pressing on Paul; the Byzantine text has a word for conspiracy.

11:30 — “The things of my weakness.” Literally as printed: the matters that belong to his weakness, which the following narrative and chapter 12 illustrate.

11:32 — “Ethnarch.” The title of an official governing an ethnic community; the Greek says “the ethnarch of King Aretas,” the Nabatean king Aretas IV. Acts 9:23–25 describes the same escape with the Jews of Damascus as the plotters; the two accounts are not merged.