Brothers and sisters, we want you to know about the trouble we suffered in Asia. We had great burdens there that were beyond our own strength. We even gave up hope of living.
Brothers and sisters, I want you to know that I planned many times to come to you, but this has not been possible. I wanted to come so that I could help you grow spiritually as I have helped the other non-Jewish people.
If I fought wild animals in Ephesus only with human hopes, I have gained nothing. If the dead are not raised, “Let us eat and drink, because tomorrow we will die.”
You think you already have everything you need. You think you are rich. You think you have become kings without us. I wish you really were kings so we could be kings together with you.
But David took an oath, saying, “Your father knows very well that you like me. He says to himself, ‘Jonathan must not know about it, or he will tell David.’ As surely as the Lord lives and as you live, I am only a step away from death!”
But David thought to himself, “Saul will catch me someday. The best thing I can do is escape to the land of the Philistines. Then he will give up looking for me in Israel, and I can get away from him.”