¹“My fellow Jews, listen to me as I make my defense before you!”

²When they heard him speaking to them in Hebrew, they became even quieter; and Paul went on:

³“I am a Jew, born in Tarsus in Cilicia, but brought up here in Jerusalem as a student of Gamaliel. I received strict instruction in the Law of our ancestors and was just as dedicated to God as are all of you who are here today.

⁴I persecuted to the death the people who followed this Way. I arrested men and women and threw them into prison.

⁵The High Priest and the whole Council can prove that I am telling the truth. I received from them letters written to fellow Jews in Damascus, so I went there to arrest these people and bring them back in chains to Jerusalem to be punished.

Paul Tells of His Conversion

⁶“As I was traveling and coming near Damascus, about midday a bright light from the sky flashed suddenly around me.

⁷I fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to me, ‘Saul, Saul! Why do you persecute me?’

⁸‘Who are you, Lord?’ I asked. ‘I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom you persecute,’ he said to me.

⁹The men with me saw the light, but did not hear the voice of the one who was speaking to me.

¹⁰I asked, ‘What shall I do, Lord?’ and the Lord said to me, ‘Get up and go into Damascus, and there you will be told everything that God has determined for you to do.’

¹¹I was blind because of the bright light, and so my companions took me by the hand and led me into Damascus.

¹²“In that city was a man named Ananias, a religious man who obeyed our Law and was highly respected by all the Jews living there.

¹³He came to me, stood by me, and said, ‘Brother Saul, see again!’ At that very moment I saw again and looked at him.

¹⁴He said, ‘The God of our ancestors has chosen you to know his will, to see his righteous Servant, and to hear him speaking with his own voice.

¹⁵For you will be a witness for him to tell everyone what you have seen and heard.

¹⁶And now, why wait any longer? Get up and be baptized and have your sins washed away by praying to him.’

Paul's Call to Preach to the Gentiles

¹⁷“I went back to Jerusalem, and while I was praying in the Temple, I had a vision,

¹⁸in which I saw the Lord, as he said to me, ‘Hurry and leave Jerusalem quickly, because the people here will not accept your witness about me.’

¹⁹‘Lord,’ I answered, ‘they know very well that I went to the synagogues and arrested and beat those who believe in you.

²⁰And when your witness Stephen was put to death, I myself was there, approving of his murder and taking care of the cloaks of his murderers.’

²¹‘Go,’ the Lord said to me, ‘for I will send you far away to the Gentiles.’”

²²The people listened to Paul until he said this; but then they started shouting at the top of their voices, “Away with him! Kill him! He's not fit to live!”

²³They were screaming, waving their clothes, and throwing dust up in the air.

²⁴The Roman commander ordered his men to take Paul into the fort, and he told them to whip him in order to find out why the Jews were screaming like this against him.

²⁵But when they had tied him up to be whipped, Paul said to the officer standing there, “Is it lawful for you to whip a Roman citizen who hasn't even been tried for any crime?”

²⁶When the officer heard this, he went to the commander and asked him, “What are you doing? That man is a Roman citizen!”

²⁷So the commander went to Paul and asked him, “Tell me, are you a Roman citizen?” “Yes,” answered Paul.

²⁸The commander said, “I became one by paying a large amount of money.” “But I am one by birth,” Paul answered.

²⁹At once the men who were going to question Paul drew back from him; and the commander was frightened when he realized that Paul was a Roman citizen and that he had put him in chains.

Paul before the Council

³⁰The commander wanted to find out for sure what the Jews were accusing Paul of; so the next day he had Paul's chains taken off and ordered the chief priests and the whole Council to meet. Then he took Paul and made him stand before them.

Help for Needy Believers

¹There is really no need for me to write you about the help being sent to God's people in Judea.

²I know that you are willing to help, and I have boasted of you to the people in Macedonia. “The believers in Achaia,” I said, “have been ready to help since last year.” Your eagerness has stirred up most of them.

³Now I am sending these believers, so that our boasting about you in this matter may not turn out to be empty words. But, just as I said, you will be ready with your help.

⁴However, if the people from Macedonia should come with me and find out that you are not ready, how ashamed we would be—not to speak of your shame—for feeling so sure of you!

⁵So I thought it was necessary to urge these believers to go to you ahead of me and get ready in advance the gift you promised to make. Then it will be ready when I arrive, and it will show that you give because you want to, not because you have to.

⁶Remember that the person who plants few seeds will have a small crop; the one who plants many seeds will have a large crop.

⁷You should each give, then, as you have decided, not with regret or out of a sense of duty; for God loves the one who gives gladly.

⁸And God is able to give you more than you need, so that you will always have all you need for yourselves and more than enough for every good cause.

⁹As the scripture says, “He gives generously to the needy; his kindness lasts forever.”

¹⁰And God, who supplies seed for the sower and bread to eat, will also supply you with all the seed you need and will make it grow and produce a rich harvest from your generosity.

¹¹He will always make you rich enough to be generous at all times, so that many will thank God for your gifts which they receive from us.

¹²For this service you perform not only meets the needs of God's people, but also produces an outpouring of gratitude to God.

¹³And because of the proof which this service of yours brings, many will give glory to God for your loyalty to the gospel of Christ, which you profess, and for your generosity in sharing with them and everyone else.

¹⁴And so with deep affection they will pray for you because of the extraordinary grace God has shown you.

¹⁵Let us thank God for his priceless gift!

Paul Defends His Ministry

¹I, Paul, make a personal appeal to you—I who am said to be meek and mild when I am with you, but harsh with you when I am away. By the gentleness and kindness of Christ

²I beg you not to force me to be harsh when I come; for I am sure I can deal harshly with those who say that we act from worldly motives.

³It is true that we live in the world, but we do not fight from worldly motives.

⁴The weapons we use in our fight are not the world's weapons but God's powerful weapons, which we use to destroy strongholds. We destroy false arguments;

⁵we pull down every proud obstacle that is raised against the knowledge of God; we take every thought captive and make it obey Christ.

⁶And after you have proved your complete loyalty, we will be ready to punish any act of disloyalty.

⁷You are looking at the outward appearance of things. Are there some there who reckon themselves to belong to Christ? Well, let them think again about themselves, because we belong to Christ just as much as they do.

⁸For I am not ashamed, even if I have boasted somewhat too much about the authority that the Lord has given us—authority to build you up, not to tear you down.

⁹I do not want it to appear that I am trying to frighten you with my letters.

¹⁰Someone will say, “Paul's letters are severe and strong, but when he is with us in person, he is weak, and his words are nothing!”

¹¹Such a person must understand that there is no difference between what we write in our letters when we are away and what we will do when we are there with you.

¹²Of course we would not dare classify ourselves or compare ourselves with those who rate themselves so highly. How stupid they are! They make up their own standards to measure themselves by, and they judge themselves by their own standards!

¹³As for us, however, our boasting will not go beyond certain limits; it will stay within the limits of the work which God has set for us, and this includes our work among you.

¹⁴And since you are within those limits, we were not going beyond them when we came to you, bringing the Good News about Christ.

¹⁵So we do not boast about the work that others have done beyond the limits God set for us. Instead, we hope that your faith may grow and that we may be able to do a much greater work among you, always within the limits that God has set.

¹⁶Then we can preach the Good News in other countries beyond you and shall not have to boast about work already done in someone else's field.

¹⁷But as the scripture says, “Whoever wants to boast must boast about what the Lord has done.”

¹⁸For it is when the Lord thinks well of us that we are really approved, and not when we think well of ourselves.

Paul and the False Apostles

¹I wish you would tolerate me, even when I am a bit foolish. Please do!

²I am jealous for you, just as God is; you are like a pure virgin whom I have promised in marriage to one man only, Christ himself.

³I am afraid that your minds will be corrupted and that you will abandon your full and pure devotion to Christ—in the same way that Eve was deceived by the snake's clever lies.

⁴For you gladly tolerate anyone who comes to you and preaches a different Jesus, not the one we preached; and you accept a spirit and a gospel completely different from the Spirit and the gospel you received from us!

⁵I do not think that I am the least bit inferior to those very special so-called “apostles” of yours!

⁶Perhaps I am an amateur in speaking, but certainly not in knowledge; we have made this clear to you at all times and in all conditions.

⁷I did not charge you a thing when I preached the Good News of God to you; I humbled myself in order to make you important. Was that wrong of me?

⁸While I was working among you, I was paid by other churches. I was robbing them, so to speak, in order to help you.

⁹And during the time I was with you I did not bother you for help when I needed money; the believers who came from Macedonia brought me everything I needed. As in the past, so in the future: I will never be a burden to you!

¹⁰By Christ's truth in me, I promise that this boast of mine will not be silenced anywhere in all of Achaia.

¹¹Do I say this because I don't love you? God knows I love you!

¹²I will go on doing what I am doing now, in order to keep those other “apostles” from having any reason for boasting and saying that they work in the same way that we do.

¹³Those men are not true apostles—they are false apostles, who lie about their work and disguise themselves to look like real apostles of Christ.

¹⁴Well, no wonder! Even Satan can disguise himself to look like an angel of light!

¹⁵So it is no great thing if his servants disguise themselves to look like servants of righteousness. In the end they will get exactly what their actions deserve.

Paul's Sufferings as an Apostle

¹⁶I repeat: no one should think that I am a fool. But if you do, at least accept me as a fool, just so I will have a little to boast of.

¹⁷Of course what I am saying now is not what the Lord would have me say; in this matter of boasting I am really talking like a fool.

¹⁸But since there are so many who boast for merely human reasons, I will do the same.

¹⁹You yourselves are so wise, and so you gladly tolerate fools!

²⁰You tolerate anyone who orders you around or takes advantage of you or traps you or looks down on you or slaps you in the face.

²¹I am ashamed to admit that we were too timid to do those things! But if anyone dares to boast about something—I am talking like a fool—I will be just as daring.

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

²³Are they Christ's servants? I sound like a madman—but I am a better servant than they are! I have worked much harder, I have been in prison more times, I have been whipped much more, and I have been near death more often.

²⁴Five times I was given the thirty-nine lashes by the Jews;

²⁵three times I was whipped by the Romans; and once I was stoned. I have been in three shipwrecks, and once I spent twenty-four hours in the water.

²⁶In my many travels I have been in danger from floods and from robbers, in danger from my own people and from Gentiles; there have been dangers in the cities, dangers in the wilds, dangers on the high seas, and dangers from false friends.

²⁷There has been work and toil; often I have gone without sleep; I have been hungry and thirsty; I have often been without enough food, shelter, or clothing.

²⁸And not to mention other things, every day I am under the pressure of my concern for all the churches.

²⁹When someone is weak, then I feel weak too; when someone is led into sin, I am filled with distress.

³⁰If I must boast, I will boast about things that show how weak I am.

³¹The God and Father of the Lord Jesus—blessed be his name forever!—knows that I am not lying.

³²When I was in Damascus, the governor under King Aretas placed guards at the city gates to arrest me.

³³But I was let down in a basket through an opening in the wall and escaped from him.

⁵If you flatter your friends, you set a trap for yourself.

⁶Evil people are trapped in their own sins, while honest people are happy and free.

⁷A good person knows the rights of the poor, but wicked people cannot understand such things.