11 ¹⁶ I repeat: let no one take me for a fool; but if you must, then give me the privilege of a fool, and let me have my little boast like others. 11 ¹⁷ I am not speaking here as a Christian, but like a fool, if it comes to is bragging. 11 ¹⁸ So many people brag of their earthly distinctions that I shall do so too. 11 ¹⁹ How gladly you bear with fools, being yourselves so wise! 11 ²⁰ If a man tyrannizes over you, exploits you, gets you in his clutches, puts on airs, and hits you in the face, you put up with it. 11 ²¹ And we, you say, have been weak! I admit the reproach.

But if there is to be bravado (and here I speak as a fool), I can indulge in it too. 11 ²² Are they Hebrews? So am I. Israelites? So am I. Abraham's descendants? So am I. 11 ²³ Are they servants of Christ? I am mad to speak like this, but I can outdo them. More overworked than they, scourged more severely, more often imprisoned, many a time face to face with death. 11 ²⁴ Five times the Jews have given me the thirty-nine strokes; 11 ²⁵ three times I have been beaten with rods; once I was stoned; three times I have been shipwrecked, and for twenty-four hours I was adrift on the open sea. 11 ²⁶ I have been constantly on the road; I have met dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from my fellow-countrymen, dangers from foreigners, dangers in towns, dangers in the country, dangers at sea, dangers from false friends. 11 ²⁷ I have toiled and drudged, I have often gone without sleep; hungry and thirsty, I have often gone fasting; and I have suffered from cold and exposure.
11 ²⁸ Apart from these external things, Or: Apart from things which I omit. there is the responsibility that weighs on me every day, my anxious concern for all our congregations. 11 ²⁹ If anyone is weak, do I not share his weakness? If anyone is made to stumble, does my heart not blaze with indignation?

11 ³⁰ If boasting there must be, I will boast of the things that show up my weakness. 11 ³¹ The God and Father of the Lord Jesus (blessed be his name for ever!) knows that what I say is true. 11 ³² When I was in Damascus, the commissioner of King Aretas kept the city under observation so as to have me arrested; 11 ³³ and I was let down in a basket, through a window in the wall, and so escaped his clutches.