For I am the very least of the apostles, unfit to bear the name of apostle, since I persecuted the church of God.
Now this is playing the fool! But you forced me to it, instead of coming forward yourselves and vouching for me. That was what I deserved; for, 'nobody' as I am, I am not one whit inferior to these precious 'apostles.'
but Saul made havoc of the church by entering one house after another, dragging off men and women, and consigning them to prison.
they merely heard that 'our former persecutor is now preaching the faith he once harried,'
in point of ardour a persecutor of the church, immaculate by the standard of legal righteousness.
You know the story of my past career in Judaism; you know how furiously I persecuted the church of God and harried it,
I hold I am not one whit inferior to these precious 'apostles'!
Put no stumbling-block in the way of Jews or Greeks or the church of God.