For you put up with it if one brings you into bondage, if one devours [you,] if one takes [from you,] if one exalts himself, if one strikes you on the face.

If I am not an apostle to others, yet doubtless I am to you. For you are the seal of my apostleship in the Lord.

I do not write these things to shame you, but as my beloved children I warn [you.]

For though you might have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet [you do] not [have] many fathers; for in Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the gospel.

But I have used none of these things, nor have I written these things that it should be done so to me; for it [would be] better for me to die than that anyone should make my boasting void.

What is my reward then? That when I preach the gospel, I may present the gospel of Christ without charge, that I may not abuse my authority in the gospel.

"Therefore watch, and remember that for three years I did not cease to warn everyone night and day with tears.

"I have coveted no one's silver or gold or apparel.

Did I commit sin in humbling myself that you might be exalted, because I preached the gospel of God to you free of charge?

And when I was present with you, and in need, I was a burden to no one, for what I lacked the brethren who came from Macedonia supplied. And in everything I kept myself from being burdensome to you, and so I will keep [myself.]

For what is it in which you were inferior to other churches, except that I myself was not burdensome to you? Forgive me this wrong!

Now [for] the third time I am ready to come to you. And I will not be burdensome to you; for I do not seek yours, but you. For the children ought not to lay up for the parents, but the parents for the children.

Nor did we seek glory from men, either from you or from others, when we might have made demands as apostles of Christ.

So, affectionately longing for you, we were well pleased to impart to you not only the gospel of God, but also our own lives, because you had become dear to us.

nor did we eat anyone's bread free of charge, but worked with labor and toil night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you,

not because we do not have authority, but to make ourselves an example of how you should follow us.

To the present hour we both hunger and thirst, and we are poorly clothed, and beaten, and homeless.

And we labor, working with our own hands. Being reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we endure;

Now therefore, it is already an utter failure for you that you go to law against one another. Why do you not rather accept wrong? Why do you not rather [let yourselves] be cheated?

And he said to them, "Do not hinder me, since the LORD has prospered my way; send me away so that I may go to my master."

and all of them conspired together to come [and] attack Jerusalem and create confusion.

"Woe to you lawyers! For you have taken away the key of knowledge. You did not enter in yourselves, and those who were entering in you hindered."

For this reason I also have been much hindered from coming to you.

But what I do, I will also continue to do, that I may cut off the opportunity from those who desire an opportunity to be regarded just as we are in the things of which they boast.