2 Corinthians 11

I wish you would put up with a little foolishness from me. And in fact you are putting up with me.

1Would to God ye could bear with me a little in my folly: and indeed bear with me.

NoteThe "folly" is the stretch of self-praise Paul is about to launch into, which runs to the end of chapter 12. In Greek and Roman culture praising yourself was considered crude, and a speaker who had to do it used recognized conventions to excuse himself: claiming he had been forced into it, or calling himself a fool for doing it. Paul uses those conventions and keeps reminding his readers that he knows how the speech sounds.

2I feel a jealousy for you that comes from God. I promised you to one husband, so I could present you to Christ as a pure bride.

2For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy: for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ.

NotePaul casts himself as the father of the bride. In Jewish practice betrothal was arranged well before the wedding and was already legally binding, and the father was responsible for guarding the girl in the interval and then handing her over to the husband. "Espoused" means betrothed, not married. The bride here is the Corinthian congregation as a group, not individual believers.

3But I am afraid of this: the snake tricked Eve with his cleverness, and in the same way your minds may somehow be pulled away from your simple, undivided devotion to Christ.

3But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.

Note"Subtilty" in 1611 English meant craftiness or cunning, without the shading of delicacy we now hear in "subtle." "Simplicity" likewise meant singleness, being aimed wholly at one object, not being simple-minded. The story of the serpent and Eve is Genesis 3.

4For if someone comes along and preaches a different Jesus than the one we preached, or if you receive a different spirit than the one you received, or a different good news than the one you accepted, you put up with that easily enough.

4For if he that cometh preacheth another Jesus, whom we have not preached, or if ye receive another spirit, which ye have not received, or another gospel, which ye have not accepted, ye might well bear with him.

5I do not think I fall short in any way of those so-called top apostles.

5For I suppose I was not a whit behind the very chiefest apostles.

Note"Apostle" is a Greek word meaning one who is sent, a commissioned representative. "The very chiefest apostles" translates a phrase Paul seems to have coined, something like super-apostles, and the tone is sarcastic. Readers disagree about whom he means: the rival missionaries who have arrived in Corinth, or the original apostles in Jerusalem whose authority those rivals were invoking.

6I may not be a trained speaker, but I do not lack knowledge. We have made that plain to you in every way and in everything.

6But though I be rude in speech, yet not in knowledge; but we have been throughly made manifest among you in all things.

Note"Rude" here means untrained or unpolished, not impolite. Public speaking was a competitive art in Greek cities, and audiences judged a teacher by his delivery as much as his content. The complaint against Paul, which he quotes back at the Corinthians earlier in the letter, was that his letters were weighty but that in person he was unimpressive to listen to.

7Did I do something wrong when I lowered myself so that you could be lifted up, because I preached God's good news to you free of charge?

7Have I committed an offence in abasing myself that ye might be exalted, because I have preached to you the gospel of God freely?

NoteTraveling teachers made their living either by charging fees or by attaching themselves to a wealthy patron. Paul instead supported himself by manual work, which people of standing in Corinth regarded as demeaning. So working for nothing looked to some Corinthians like an insult to them, or like an admission that his teaching was not worth paying for.

8I robbed other churches by taking pay from them in order to serve you.

8I robbed other churches, taking wages of them, to do you service.

Note"Robbed" translates a word used of plundering a city or stripping a defeated enemy, and Paul is deliberately overstating for effect. The word behind "wages" is the term for a soldier's pay and rations.

9And when I was with you and ran short, I did not put the load on anyone. The brothers who came from Macedonia supplied what I lacked. I kept myself from being a burden to you in every way, and I will keep on doing that.

9And when I was present with you, and wanted, I was chargeable to no man: for that which was lacking to me the brethren which came from Macedonia supplied: and in all things I have kept myself from being burdensome unto you, and so will I keep myself.

NoteMacedonia was the Roman province covering northern Greece, home to the churches at Philippi and Thessalonica. Paul took support from those churches while refusing it from Corinth, which is part of what the Corinthians resented.

10As surely as the truth of Christ is in me, no one in the whole region of Achaia is going to stop me from boasting about this.

10As the truth of Christ is in me, no man shall stop me of this boasting in the regions of Achaia.

NoteAchaia was the Roman province covering southern Greece, with Corinth as its capital city. Paul means the whole province, not just the one town.

11Why do I say that? Because I do not love you? God knows that I do.

11Wherefore? because I love you not? God knoweth.

12But I will keep on doing what I am doing, so I can take away the opening from those who want an opening. They want to be seen as our equals in the things they boast about.

12But what I do, that I will do, that I may cut off occasion from them which desire occasion; that wherein they glory, they may be found even as we.

13Men like that are false apostles. They are dishonest workers who dress themselves up to look like apostles of Christ.

13For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ.

14And that is no surprise, since Satan himself dresses up to look like an angel of light.

14And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.

Note"Angel" simply means messenger. Jewish writings of the period tell the story of Genesis 3 with the detail that Satan appeared to Eve in the brightness of an angel in order to deceive her, which connects this line back to verse 3.

15So it is nothing remarkable if his servants also dress up to look like servants of what is right. Their end will match what they have done.

15Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works.

16I say it again: do not let anyone think I am a fool. But if you do think so, then accept me as a fool, so that I too can boast a little.

16I say again, Let no man think me a fool; if otherwise, yet as a fool receive me, that I may boast myself a little.

17What I am saying here I am not saying the way the Lord would say it. I am talking like a fool, in this confident boasting.

17That which I speak, I speak it not after the Lord, but as it were foolishly, in this confidence of boasting.

18Since so many people boast about human things, I will boast too.

18Seeing that many glory after the flesh, I will glory also.

Note"After the flesh" means by ordinary human measures: ancestry, credentials, backing, achievements, the things a person would list to impress an audience. It has nothing to do with the body or with sexuality here.

19After all, you gladly put up with fools, since you are so wise yourselves.

19For ye suffer fools gladly, seeing ye yourselves are wise.

20In fact, you put up with it if someone makes slaves of you, if someone eats you up, if someone takes what is yours, if someone puts himself above you, if someone hits you in the face.

20For ye suffer, if a man bring you into bondage, if a man devour you, if a man take of you, if a man exalt himself, if a man smite you on the face.

Note"Devour" is a standard idiom for eating up someone's property, living at their expense. A slap to the face mattered less for the pain than for the humiliation; it was the recognized public gesture of contempt toward someone treated as an inferior, and the list builds up to it as the final indignity.

21To my shame, I admit that we were too weak for that. But whatever anyone else dares to boast about, I am talking like a fool here, I can dare to boast about too.

21I speak as concerning reproach, as though we had been weak. Howbeit whereinsoever any is bold, (I speak foolishly,) I am bold also.

NoteThe Greek sentence is compressed and has been read in several ways. The likeliest sense is heavy sarcasm: Paul "admits" to the shameful weakness of never having exploited or bullied the Corinthians the way their new teachers do.

22Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they descendants of Abraham? So am I.

22Are they Hebrews? so am I. Are they Israelites? so am I. Are they the seed of Abraham? so am I.

NoteThree overlapping claims, each answering a boast his rivals have made. "Hebrew" probably marks someone raised speaking Hebrew or Aramaic rather than only Greek, so a Jew of the homeland rather than of the wider diaspora. "Israelite" names membership in the covenant people. "The seed of Abraham" claims descent from the patriarch and a share in the promises made to him.

23Are they servants of Christ? I am talking like a madman here, but I am more. I have worked harder, been beaten far worse, been in prison more often, and faced death again and again.

23Are they ministers of Christ? (I speak as a fool) I am more; in labours more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent, in deaths oft.

24Five times the Jews gave me the forty lashes minus one.

24Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one.

NoteThe law in Deuteronomy 25 set forty strokes as the absolute maximum, so later Jewish practice fixed the count at thirty-nine to make certain the limit was never passed by a miscount. This was a synagogue court's punishment, which means that over these years Paul was still presenting himself to Jewish communities and still accepting their discipline. The beating was severe enough that men sometimes died under it.

25Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was pelted with stones. Three times I was shipwrecked. I spent a night and a day adrift at sea.

25Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I have been in the deep;

NoteBeating with rods was a Roman civic punishment, carried out by the officers who attended a magistrate and carried bundles of rods for the purpose. Stoning was a Jewish method of execution, the crowd or the court throwing stones until the victim died. "In the deep" means adrift in open water after a wreck, most likely clinging to floating timber. None of these three shipwrecks is the famous one in Acts 27, which happened years later.

26I have traveled constantly. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from robbers, in danger from my own people, in danger from those who are not Jews, in danger in the city, in danger out in the empty country, in danger at sea, and in danger among people who called themselves brothers but were not.

26In journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren;

Note"Perils of waters" means rivers. Roads crossed streams at fords, which flooded without warning in the wet season and drowned travelers regularly. "False brethren" are people inside the Christian communities themselves, not outsiders, which is what makes them a separate category from the robbers and the hostile crowds.

27I have known hard work and exhaustion, many sleepless nights, hunger and thirst, going without food again and again, cold, and having nothing to wear.

27In weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness.

Note"Fastings" is as ambiguous in the Greek as in English: it can mean deliberate religious fasting or simply having nothing to eat. The company it keeps in this list of hardships suggests involuntary hunger, though Paul may intend both. "Nakedness" means being without adequate clothing or shelter, exposure to the weather, not literal nudity.

28On top of everything that comes at me from outside, there is the pressure I feel every single day: my concern for all the churches.

28Beside those things that are without, that which cometh upon me daily, the care of all the churches.

29Who is weak without my feeling weak too? Who is led into sin without my burning inside?

29Who is weak, and I am not weak? who is offended, and I burn not?

Note"Offended" in 1611 English meant tripped up, made to stumble into sin, not annoyed or insulted. What "I burn" refers to is left open in the Greek: it may be burning with distress and sympathy for the person who fell, or burning with anger at whoever pushed them.

30If I have to boast, I will boast about the things that show how weak I am.

30If I must needs glory, I will glory of the things which concern mine infirmities.

31The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is to be praised forever, knows that I am not lying.

31The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which is blessed for evermore, knoweth that I lie not.

NoteCalling on God as witness was a formal oath, the strongest guarantee a person could give that what follows is true. "Which is blessed for evermore" is a set Jewish phrase of praise attached to God's name whenever it was spoken.

32In Damascus, the governor under King Aretas had the city of the Damascenes guarded so he could arrest me.

32In Damascus the governor under Aretas the king kept the city of the Damascenes with a garrison, desirous to apprehend me:

NoteAretas IV was king of the Nabateans, an Arab kingdom lying south and east of Damascus with its capital at Petra. He ruled from roughly 9 BC to AD 40. "Governor" translates the title ethnarch, an official responsible for Nabatean interests and the Nabatean community in the city; exactly how much authority he held over Damascus itself is unclear. The same escape is described in Acts 9.

33But I was lowered in a basket through a window in the city wall, and I slipped out of his hands.

33And through a window in a basket was I let down by the wall, and escaped his hands.

NoteHouses were often built into or against the city wall, with upper windows opening over the outside, so a window in the wall is a window in someone's house. The basket was a large woven hamper of the kind used to carry provisions. Paul ends the whole catalogue of his credentials with this: not a heroic act, but being handed down a wall like luggage.