Book of Common Prayer

¹¹ I am made a fool in going on about myself. You have compelled me. I ought to have been commended by you. For in nothing was I inferior to the chief apostles. Though I am nothing, ¹² yet the signs that mark an apostle were wrought among you with all patience – with miracles, and wonders, and works of power. ¹³ For in what were you less favoured than other congregations? – unless it is in that I was not burdensome to you. Forgive me this wrong done to you! ¹⁴ And now the third time I am ready to come to you, and still I will not be a burden to you. For I seek not yours, but you. Also, the children ought not to lay up for the fathers and mothers, but the fathers and mothers for the children. ¹⁵ I will very gladly give, and will be given, for your souls – though the more I love you, the less I am loved in return.

¹⁶ But granted that I did not impose upon you, nevertheless I was crafty and took you with guile – ¹⁷ Did I rob you through any of the men that I sent to you? ¹⁸ I asked Titus, and with him I sent a brother. Did Titus defraud you of anything? Did we not walk in the same spirit? Did we not walk in like steps? ¹⁹ Again, do you think that we are justifying ourselves to you? We speak in Christ, in the sight of God.

But we do all things, dearly beloveds, for your upbuilding. ²⁰ For I fear lest it come to pass that when I come, I will not find you such as I would like, and you will find me such as I would not want. I fear lest there be found among you debate, envying, anger, rivalry, backbiting, whisperings, swelling, and discord. ²¹ I fear that when I come again, God may bring me low among you, and I may be constrained to bewail many of those who have sinned already and have not repented of the uncleanness, fornication, and wantonness that they have committed.

⁴¹ And when he came near, he beheld the city and wept on it, ⁴² saying, If only you had known those things that belong to your peace, at this your very time! But now they are hid from your eyes. ⁴³ For the days will come upon you that your enemies will cast up a siege-mound about you, and compass you around, and hem you in on every side, ⁴⁴ and lay you level with the ground, with your children who are in you. And they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not acknowledge the time of your visitation.

⁴⁵ And he went into the temple and began to cast out those who sold therein, and those who bought, ⁴⁶ saying to them, It is written: My house is the house of prayer. But you have made it a den of thieves.

⁴⁷ And he taught daily in the temple. The high priests and the scribes and the chief men of the people went about to destroy him, but could not find what to do, ⁴⁸ because all the people stayed close by him, and listened attentively to him.