Paul Defends His Apostleship

11 I wish that you would put up with me in something a little foolish[a]—but indeed you are putting up with me. For I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy, because I promised you in marriage to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ. But I am afraid lest somehow, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds may be led astray from the sincerity and the purity of devotion to Christ. For if the one who comes proclaims another Jesus whom we have not proclaimed, or you receive a different spirit which you did not receive, or a different gospel which you did not accept, you put up with it well enough! For I consider myself in no way to be inferior to the preeminent apostles.[b] But even if I am unskilled in speech, yet I am not in knowledge; certainly in everything we have made this clear to you in every way.

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Footnotes

  1. 2 Corinthians 11:1 Literally “a little something of foolishness”
  2. 2 Corinthians 11:5 Some interpreters take this to refer to the original apostles in Jerusalem; others take Paul to be referring sarcastically to his opponents in Corinth.