011:014 And no wonder. Satan, their master, can disguise himself as an angel of light. 011:015 It is therefore no great thing for his servants also to disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. Their end will be in accordance with their actions. 011:016 To return to what I was saying. Let no one suppose that I am foolish. Or if you must, at any rate make allowance for me as being foolish, in order that I, as well as they, may boast a little. 011:017 What I am now saying, I do not say by the Lord's command, but as a fool in his folly might, in this reckless boasting. 011:018 Since many boast for merely human reasons, I too will boast. 011:019 Wise as you yourselves are, you find pleasure in tolerating fools. 011:020 For you tolerate it, if any one enslaves you, lives at your expense, makes off with your property, gives himself airs, or strikes you on the face. 011:021 I use the language of self-disparagement, as though I were admitting our own feebleness. Yet for whatever reason any one is `courageous'--I speak in mere folly-- I also am courageous. 011:022 Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they descendants of Abraham? So am I. 011:023 Are they servants of Christ? (I speak as if I were out of my mind.) Much more am I His servant; serving Him more thoroughly than they by my labours, and more thoroughly also by my imprisonments, by excessively cruel floggings, and with risk of life many a time. 011:024 From the Jews I five times have received forty lashes all but one. 011:025 Three times I have been beaten with Roman rods, once I have been stoned, three times I have been shipwrecked, once for full four and twenty hours I was floating on the open sea. 011:026 I have served Him by frequent travelling, amid dangers in crossing rivers, dangers from robbers; dangers from my own countrymen, dangers from the Gentiles; dangers in the city, dangers in the Desert, dangers by sea, dangers from spies in our midst; 011:027 with labour and toil, with many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, in frequent fastings, in cold, and with insufficient clothing. 011:028 And besides other things, which I pass over, there is that which presses on me daily--my anxiety for all the Churches. 011:029 Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is led astray into sin, and I am not aflame with indignation? 011:030 If boast I must, it shall be of things which display my weakness. 011:031 The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ--He who is blessed throughout the Ages--knows that I am speaking the truth. 011:032 In Damascus the governor under King Aretas kept guards at the gates of the city in order to apprehend me,