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 weighty and powerful, but his bodily presence is weak, and his speech contemptible.”
What I speak, I speak not according to the Lord, but as it were, foolishly, in this confidence of boasting.
Therefore I write these things being absent, lest being present I should use sharpness, according to the authority which the Lord has given me for edification and not for destruction.
by honor and dishonor, by evil report and good report; as deceivers, and yet true;
Oh, that you would bear with me in a little folly—and indeed you do bear with me.