persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed.

We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.

And in keeping with what is written, “I believed, therefore I have spoken,” we who have the same spirit of faith also believe and therefore speak,

knowing that the One who raised the Lord Jesus will also raise us with Jesus and present us with you in His presence.

So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that One died for all, therefore all died.

And He died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died for them and was raised again.

Rather, as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: in great endurance; in troubles, hardships, and calamities;

in beatings, imprisonments, and riots; in labor, sleepless nights, and hunger;

in purity, knowledge, patience, and kindness; in the Holy Spirit and in sincere love;

in truthful speech and in the power of God; with the weapons of righteousness in the right hand and in the left;

through glory and dishonor, slander and praise; viewed as imposters, yet genuine;

unknown, yet well-known; dying, and yet we live on; punished, yet not killed;

sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, and yet possessing everything.

Great is my confidence in you; great is my pride in you; I am filled with encouragement; in all our troubles my joy overflows.

But God, who comforts the downcast, comforted us by the arrival of Titus,

Are they servants of Christ? (I am speaking as if I were out of my mind.) I am so much more: in harder …

Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one.

Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked. I spent a night and a day in the open sea.

In my frequent journeys, I have been in danger from rivers and from bandits, in danger from my countrymen and from the Gentiles, …

in labor and toil and often without sleep, in hunger and thirst and often without food, in cold and exposure.

Apart from these external trials, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches.

Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is led into sin, and I do not burn with grief?

… because of these surpassingly great revelations. So to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger …

Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me.