9 [12:11]I have become foolish; you compelled me. For I ought to have been commended by you; for in nothing am I behind the chief of the apostles, though I also am nothing. [12:12]The signs of an apostle were performed among you with all patience, in miracles, and prodigies, and mighty works. [12:13]For what is there in which you were inferior to the rest of the churches, except that I was not burdensome to you? Forgive me this wrong. 10 [12:14]Behold, I am ready to come to you a third time, and I will not be burdensome to you; for I seek not yours, but you. For the children ought not to lay up treasure for the parents, but the parents for the children. [12:15]And I most gladly will spend and will be spent for your souls, even if the more abundantly I love you the less I am loved. [12:16]Be it so, I was not burdensome to you; but being crafty I caught you with deceit. [12:17]Did I make any thing out of you by any of those I sent to you? [12:18]I requested Titus, and sent the brother with him; did Titus make any thing out of you? Did we not walk in the same spirit, in the same steps? CHAPTER IV. PROPOSED VISIT, ETC. 1 [12:19]Do you again think that we are defending ourselves? We speak in Christ before God; all these things, beloved, are for your edification. [12:20]For I fear lest when I come I shall not find you such as I wish, and that I shall be found such as you wish not; lest there shall be strife, envy, anger, contentions, evil speakings, whisperings, pride, dissensions; [12:21]lest when I come again my God shall humble me before you, and I shall mourn for many who have sinned, and not changed their minds, in respect to impurity and fornication and lewdness which they have committed. 2 [13:1]This third time I am coming to you; by the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established. [13:2]I have said before, and I now foretell as if present a second time, although absent, to those who have already sinned and to all the rest, that if I come again I will not spare; [13:3]since you seek a proof in me of Christ speaking, who is not weak to you but powerful in you; [13:4]for though he was crucified in weakness, yet he lives by the power of God; and we also are weak in him, but live with him by the power of God in you. 3 [13:5]Try yourselves, whether you are in the faith; prove yourselves; or know you not yourselves that Christ is in you unless you are reprobates? [13:6]But I hope you will know that we are not reprobates. [13:7]We wish to God that you may do no evil, not that we may appear approved, but that you may do good though we should be as reprobates. [13:8]For we can do nothing against the truth, but for the truth. [13:9]For we rejoice when we are weak and you are strong; and we desire this, your perfection. [13:10]For this reason, being absent, I write these things, that I may not use sharpness when present, with the power which the Lord has given me for building up, and not for pulling down.