2 Corinthians 10

¹ I urge you by the gentleness and forbearance of Christ -- this is Paul now speaking personal y-I, theone who is so humble when he is facing you but ful of boldness at a distance.

² Yes, my appeal to you is that I should not have to be bold when I am actual y with you, or show thesame self-assurance as I reckon to use when I am chal enging those who reckon that we are guided by humanmotives.

³ For although we are human, it is not by human methods that we do battle.

⁴ The weapons with which we do battle are not those of human nature, but they have the power, inGod's cause, to demolish fortresses. It is ideas that we demolish,

⁵ every presumptuous notion that is set up against the knowledge of God, and we bring every thoughtinto captivity and obedience to Christ;

⁶ once you have given your complete obedience, we are prepared to punish any disobedience.

⁷ Look at the evidence of your eyes. Anybody who is convinced that he belongs to Christ should go onto reflect that we belong to Christ no less than he does.

⁸ Maybe I have taken rather too much pride in our authority, but the Lord gave us that for building youup, not for knocking you down, and I am not going to be shamed

⁹ into letting you think that I can put fear into you only by letter.

¹⁰ Someone said, 'His letters are weighty enough, and ful of strength, but when you see him in person,he makes no impression and his powers of speaking are negligible.'

¹¹ I should like that sort of person to take note that our deeds when we are present wil show the samequalities as our letters when we were at a distance.

¹² We are not venturing to rank ourselves, or even to compare ourselves with certain people whoprovide their own commendations. By measuring themselves by themselves and comparing themselves tothemselves, they only show their fol y.

¹³ By contrast we do not intend to boast beyond measure, but wil measure ourselves by the standardwhich God laid down for us, namely that of having come al the way to you.

¹⁴ We are not overreaching ourselves as we would be if we had not come all the way to you; in fact wewere the first to come as far as you with the good news of Christ.

¹⁵ So we are not boasting beyond measure, about other men's work; in fact, we hope, as your faithincreases, to grow greater and greater by this standard of ours,

¹⁶ by preaching the gospel to regions beyond you, rather than boasting about work already done insomeone else's province.

¹⁷ Let anyone who wants to boast, boast of the Lord.

¹⁸ For it is not through self-commendation that recognition is won, but through commendation.