¹⁴ “But who am I, and who are my people, that we should be able to give as generously as this?^(A) Everything comes from you, and we have given you only what comes from your hand.^(B)

¹⁷ Every good and perfect gift is from above,^(A) coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights,^(B) who does not change^(C) like shifting shadows.

⁵ Not that we are competent in ourselves^(A) to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God.^(B)

⁹ But he said to me, “My grace^(A) is sufficient for you, for my power^(B) is made perfect in weakness.^(C)”^(D) Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. ¹⁰ That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight^(E) in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships,^(F) in persecutions,^(G) in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.^(H)

Paul’s Concern for the Corinthians

¹¹ I have made a fool of myself,^(I) but you drove me to it. I ought to have been commended by you, for I am not in the least inferior to the “super-apostles,”^[a](J) even though I am nothing.^(K)

Psalm 115^(A)

⁹ For I am the least of the apostles^(A) and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted^(B) the church of God.^{(C) 10} But by the grace^(D) of God I am what I am, and his grace to me^(E) was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them^(F)—yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me.^(G)

David’s Prayer^(A)

¹⁸ Then King David went in and sat before the Lord, and he said: