Chapter 10

Now I myself, Paul, appeal to you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ---I who to your face indeed am diffident when among you, but when absent am fearless towards you!

Yes, I beseech you that I may not when I come have to be bold, with that assurance wherewith I am thought to be bold, against those who regard us as walking according to the flesh.

For though we walk in the flesh, we do not make war according to the flesh;

for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but powerful before God to the demolishing of strongholds, the destroying of reasoning---

yes, of every lofty thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every mind into captivity to the obedience of Christ,

and being prepared to take vengeance on all disobedience when once your own submission is complete.

Look at what is before you. If anyone is confident that he is Christ's, let him reflect within himself that even as he is Christ's, so too are we.

For even if I boast somewhat more about our authority (which the Lord has given for your upbuilding, and not for your destruction), I shall not be put to shame.

But that I may not seem to terrify you, as it were, by letters

("for his letters," they say, "are weighty and telling, but his bodily appearance is weak and his speech of no account"),

let such people understand that what we are in word by letter when absent, such are we also in deed when bodily present.

Of course we have not the boldness to class ourselves or to compare ourselves with certain ones who commend themselves. We, on the contrary, measure ourselves by ourselves and compare ourselves with ourselves;

and so we do not boast beyond our limits, but within the limits of the commission which God has given us---limits which include you also.

For we are not going beyond our commission, as if it did not embrace you, since we reached even as far as you with the gospel of Christ.

We do not boast beyond our limits, in the labors of other men; but we hope, as your faith increases, greatly to enlarge through you the province allotted to us,

so as even to preach the gospel in places that lie beyond you, instead of boasting in another man's sphere about work already done.

"But he who boasts, let him boast in the Lord."

For he is not approved who commends himself, but he whom the Lord commends.