Because we have heard that certain ones who went out from us have troubled you with words, unsettling your souls, saying, Be circumcised and keep the law! (to whom we gave no such command);
But I ask, not being present, that I may be bold with the confidence which I think to be daring against some, who thought of us as walking according to flesh.
Therefore I write these things while absent, lest being present I may not deal sharply with you according to the authority which the Lord gave me for building up, and not for pulling down.
And I wrote this to you, lest when I came I should have sorrow from the ones of whom I ought to rejoice; having confidence in you all, that my joy is the joy of you all.
And we have sent with them our brother whom we have often proved earnest in many things, but now much more earnest by the great confidence which I have in you.
But from those who seemed to be something (what kind they were then does not matter to me; God does not accept the face of man), for those seeming important conferred nothing to me.