Paul’s Concern for the Corinthian Church

¹¹ I have been a fool! You forced me to it. Indeed you should have been the ones commending me, for I am not at all inferior to these super-apostles, even though I am nothing.^(A)

⁵ I think that I am not in the least inferior to these super-apostles.^(A)

Paul and the False Apostles

11 I wish you would put up with me in a little foolishness. Yes, do put up^[a] with me!^(A)

⁸ Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.^{(A) 9} For I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.^{(B) 10} But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me has not been in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I but the grace of God that is with me.^(C)

⁸ Although I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given to me to bring to the gentiles the news of the boundless riches of Christ^(A)

⁶ And from those who were supposed to be acknowledged leaders (what they actually were makes no difference to me; God shows no partiality)—those leaders contributed nothing to me.^{(A) 7} On the contrary, when they saw that I had been entrusted with the gospel for the uncircumcised, just as Peter had been entrusted with the gospel for the circumcised^{(B) 8} (for he who worked through Peter making him an apostle to the circumcised also worked through me in sending me to the gentiles), ⁹ and when James and Cephas and John, who were acknowledged pillars, recognized the grace that had been given to me, they gave to Barnabas and me the right hand of fellowship, agreeing that we should go to the gentiles and they to the circumcised.^{(C) 10} They asked only one thing, that we remember the poor, which was actually what I was^[a] eager to do.^(D)

Paul Rebukes Peter at Antioch

¹¹ But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face because he stood self-condemned,^{(E) 12} for until certain people came from James, he used to eat with the gentiles. But after they came, he drew back and kept himself separate for fear of the circumcision faction.^{(F) 13} And the other Jews joined him in this hypocrisy, so that even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy. ¹⁴ But when I saw that they were not acting consistently with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all, “If you, though a Jew, live like a gentile and not like a Jew, how can you compel the gentiles to live like Jews?”^[b](G)

¹² The signs of an apostle were performed among you with utmost patience, signs and wonders and mighty works.^(A)

⁶ But if I wish to boast, I will not be a fool, for I will be speaking the truth. But I refrain from it, so that no one may think better of me than what is seen in me or heard from me,^(A)

Paul’s Sufferings as an Apostle

¹⁶ I repeat, let no one think that I am a fool, but if you do, then accept me as a fool, so that I, too, may boast a little. ¹⁷ What I am saying in regard to this boastful undertaking, I am saying not with the Lord’s authority but as a fool;^(A)

⁶ If we are being afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation; if we are being consoled, it is for your consolation, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we are also suffering.