2 Corinthians 12:11-13:4

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

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) 12} The signs of an apostle were performed among you with utmost patience, signs and wonders and mighty works.^{(B) 13} How have you been worse off than the other churches, except that I myself did not burden you? Forgive me this wrong!^(C)

¹⁴ Here I am, ready to come to you this third time, and I will not be a burden because I do not want what is yours but you, for children ought not to save up for their parents but parents for their children.^{(D) 15} I will most gladly spend and be spent for you. If I love you more, am I to be loved less?^{(E) 16} Be that as it may, I did not burden you. But, crafty person that I am, did I take you in by deceit? ¹⁷ Did I take advantage of you through any of those whom I sent to you? ¹⁸ I urged Titus to go and sent the brother with him. Titus did not take advantage of you, did he? Did we not conduct ourselves with the same spirit? Did we not walk in the same footsteps?^(F)

¹⁹ Have you been thinking all along that we have been defending ourselves before you? We are speaking in Christ before God. Everything we do, beloved, is for the sake of building you up.^{(G) 20} For I fear that when I come I may find you not as I wish and that you may find me not as you wish; I fear that there may perhaps be quarreling, jealousy, anger, selfishness, slander, gossip, conceit, and disorder.^{(H) 21} I fear that when I come again my God may humble me before you and that I may have to mourn over many who previously sinned and have not repented of the impurity, sexual immorality, and debauchery that they have practiced.^(I)

Further Warning

13 This is the third time I am coming to you. “Any charge must be sustained by the evidence of two or three witnesses.”^{(J) 2} I warned those who sinned previously and all the others, and I warn them now while absent, as I did when present on my second visit, that if I come again I will not be lenient— ³ since you desire proof that Christ is speaking in me. He is not weak in dealing with you but is powerful in you.^{(K) 4} For he was crucified in weakness but lives by the power of God. For we are weak in him,^[a] but in dealing with you we will live with him by the power of God.^(L)