To our shame, I say that we were too weak for that! But in whatever anyone is bold (I speak foolishly) I am bold also.
"For his letters," they say, "are severe and boisterous, but his bodily presence is feeble, and his speech amounts to nothing."
Oh, that you would bear with me a little in my foolishness; but indeed you do bear with me.
What I speak, I speak not according to the Lord, but as it were, foolishly, in this confidence of boasting.
Because of this I write these things being absent, in order that when I am present I may not deal sharply with you, according to the authority which the Lord gave me for edification and not for destruction.
by honor and dishonor, by ill repute and good repute; as deceivers, and yet true;