Hebrew Names Version HNV
The Message Bible MSG
1 I wish that you would bear with me in a little foolishness, but indeed you do bear with me.
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Will you put up with a little foolish aside from me? Please, just for a moment.
2 For I am jealous over you with a godly jealousy. For I married you to one husband, that I might present you as a pure virgin to Messiah.
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The thing that has me so upset is that I care about you so much - this is the passion of God burning inside me! I promised your hand in marriage to Christ, presented you as a pure virgin to her husband.
3 But I am afraid that by any means, as the serpent deceived Havah in his craftiness, so your minds might be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Messiah.
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And now I'm afraid that exactly as the Snake seduced Eve with his smooth patter, you are being lured away from the simple purity of your love for Christ.
4 For if he who comes preaches another Yeshua, whom we did not preach, or if you receive a different spirit, which you did not receive, or a different Good News, which you did not accept, you put up with that well enough.
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It seems that if someone shows up preaching quite another Jesus than we preached - different spirit, different message - you put up with him quite nicely.
5 For I reckon that I am not at all behind the very best apostles.
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But if you put up with these big-shot "apostles," why can't you put up with simple me? I'm as good as they are.
6 But though I am unskilled in speech, yet I am not unskilled in knowledge. No, in every way we have been revealed to you in all things.
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It's true that I don't have their voice, haven't mastered that smooth eloquence that impresses you so much. But when I do open my mouth, I at least know what I'm talking about. We haven't kept anything back. We let you in on everything.
7 Or did I commit a sin in humbling myself that you might be exalted, because I preached to you God's Good News for nothing?
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I wonder, did I make a bad mistake in proclaiming God's Message to you without asking for something in return, serving you free of charge so that you wouldn't be inconvenienced by me?
8 I robbed other assemblies, taking wages from them that I might serve you.
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It turns out that the other churches paid my way so that you could have a free ride.
9 When I was present with you and was in need, I wasn't a burden on anyone, for the brothers, when they came from Macedonia, supplied the measure of my need. In everything I kept myself from being burdensome to you, and I will continue to do so.
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Not once during the time I lived among you did anyone have to lift a finger to help me out. My needs were always supplied by the Christians from Macedonia province. I was careful never to be a burden to you, and I never will be, you can count on it.
10 As the truth of Messiah is in me, no one will stop me from this boasting in the regions of Achaia.
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With Christ as my witness, it's a point of honor with me, and I'm not going to keep it quiet just to protect you from what the neighbors will think.
11 Why? Because I don't love you? God knows.
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It's not that I don't love you; God knows I do.
12 But what I do, that I will do, that I may cut off occasion from them that desire an occasion, that in which they boast, they may be found even as we.
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I'm just trying to keep things open and honest between us.
13 For such men are false apostles, deceitful workers, masquerading as Messiah's apostles.
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They're a sorry bunch - pseudo-apostles, lying preachers, crooked workers - posing as Christ's agents but sham to the core.
14 And no wonder, for even Hasatan masquerades as an angel of light.
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And no wonder! Satan does it all the time, dressing up as a beautiful angel of light.
15 It is no great thing therefore if his ministers also masquerade as servants of righteousness, whose end will be according to their works.
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So it shouldn't surprise us when his servants masquerade as servants of God. But they're not getting by with anything. They'll pay for it in the end. Many a Long and Lonely Night
16 I say again, let no one think me foolish. But if so, yet receive me as foolish, that I also may boast a little.
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Let me come back to where I started - and don't hold it against me if I continue to sound a little foolish. Or if you'd rather, just accept that I am a fool and let me rant on a little.
17 That which I speak, I don't speak after the Lord, but as in foolishness, in this confidence of boasting.
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I didn't learn this kind of talk from Christ.
18 Seeing that many boast after the flesh, I will also boast.
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Oh, no, it's a bad habit I picked up from the three-ring preachers that are so popular these days.
19 For you bear with the foolish gladly, being wise.
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Since you sit there in the judgment seat observing all these shenanigans, you can afford to humor an occasional fool who happens along.
20 For you bear with a man, if he brings you into bondage, if he devours you, if he takes you captive, if he exalts himself, if he strikes you on the face.
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You have such admirable tolerance for impostors who rob your freedom, rip you off, steal you blind, put you down - even slap your face!
21 I speak by way of disparagement, as though we had been weak. Yet however any is bold (I speak in foolishness), I am bold also.
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I shouldn't admit it to you, but our stomachs aren't strong enough to tolerate that kind of stuff.
22 Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Yisra'elites? So am I. Are they the seed of Avraham? So am I.
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Do they brag of being Hebrews, Israelites, the pure race of Abraham? I'm their match.
23 Are they servants of Messiah? (I speak as one beside himself) I am more so; in labors more abundantly, in prisons more abundantly, in stripes above measure, in deaths often.
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Are they servants of Christ? I can go them one better. (I can't believe I'm saying these things. It's crazy to talk this way! But I started, and I'm going to finish.)
24 Five times from the Yehudim I received forty stripes minus one.
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I've been flogged five times with the Jews' thirty-nine lashes,
25 Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I suffered shipwreck. I have been a night and a day in the deep.
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beaten by Roman rods three times, pummeled with rocks once. I've been shipwrecked three times, and immersed in the open sea for a night and a day.
26 I have been in travels often, perils of rivers, perils of robbers, perils from my countrymen, perils from the Goyim, perils in the city, perils in the wilderness, perils in the sea, perils among false brothers;
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In hard traveling year in and year out, I've had to ford rivers, fend off robbers, struggle with friends, struggle with foes. I've been at risk in the city, at risk in the country, endangered by desert sun and sea storm, and betrayed by those I thought were my brothers.
27 in labor and travail, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, and in cold and nakedness.
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I've known drudgery and hard labor, many a long and lonely night without sleep, many a missed meal, blasted by the cold, naked to the weather.
28 Besides those things that are outside, there is that which presses on me daily, anxiety for all the assemblies.
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And that's not the half of it, when you throw in the daily pressures and anxieties of all the churches.
29 Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is caused to stumble, and I don't burn?
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When someone gets to the end of his rope, I feel the desperation in my bones. When someone is duped into sin, an angry fire burns in my gut.
30 If I must boast, I will boast of the things that concern my weakness.
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If I have to "brag" about myself, I'll brag about the humiliations that make me like Jesus.
31 The God and Father of the Lord Yeshua the Messiah, he who is blessed forevermore, knows that I don't lie.
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The eternal and blessed God and Father of our Master Jesus knows I'm not lying.
32 In Dammesek the governor under Aretas the king guarded the city of the Damascenes desiring to arrest me.
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Remember the time I was in Damascus and the governor of King Aretas posted guards at the city gates to arrest me?
33 Through a window I was let down in a basket by the wall, and escaped his hands.
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I crawled through a window in the wall, was let down in a basket, and had to run for my life.
The Hebrew Names Version is in the public domain.