⁵ Try your own selves, whether ye are in the faith; prove your own selves. Or know ye not as to your own selves, that Jesus Christ is in you? unless indeed ye be reprobate. ⁶ But I hope that ye shall know that we are not reprobate. ⁷ Now we pray to God that ye do no evil; not that we may appear approved, but that ye may do that which is honorable, ^[a]though we be as reprobate. ⁸ For we can do nothing against the truth, but for the truth. ⁹ For we rejoice, when we are weak, and ye are strong: this we also pray for, even your perfecting. ¹⁰ For this cause I write these things while absent, that I may not when present deal sharply, according to the authority which the Lord gave me for building up, and not for casting down.