What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said, “I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

Therefore go out from their midst, and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch no unclean thing; then I will welcome you,

and I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty.”

For even if I boast a little too much of our authority, which the Lord gave for building you up and not for destroying you, I will not be ashamed.

And what I am doing I will continue to do, in order to undermine the claim of those who would like to claim that in their boasted mission they work on the same terms as we do.

If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness.

Paul's Visions and His Thorn

I must go on boasting. Though there is nothing to be gained by it, I will go on to visions and revelations of the Lord.

On behalf of this man I will boast, but on my own behalf I will not boast, except of my weaknesses—

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

Here for the third time I am ready to come to you. And I will not be a burden, for I seek not what is yours but you. For children are not obligated to save up for their parents, but parents for their children.

I will most gladly spend and be spent for your souls. If I love you more, am I to be loved less?

I warned those who sinned before 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 spare them—