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23 Are they ministers of Christ?[a] (I am talking now like a madman.) I am too, having endured far greater labors, far more imprisonments, far harsher scourgings, and far more brushes with death.

24 Five times I received from the Jews forty lashes minus one.[b] 25 Three times I was beaten with rods; once I was stoned; three times I was shipwrecked; once I was adrift in the open sea for a night and a day. 26 I have traveled continually and faced dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from my own people, dangers from Gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the desert, dangers at sea, and dangers from false brethren.

27 I have endured toil and hardship, and sleepless nights. I have been hungry and thirsty, and I have often gone without food. I have been cold, and often all but naked.

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Footnotes

  1. 2 Corinthians 11:23 Ministers of Christ: Paul states that though the false apostles can claim the title, he can claim it with far greater force because of his unremitting labor and ceaseless endurance of trials. Far more brushes with death: a biographical fragment about a dramatic series of sufferings of which Acts says nothing, perhaps because they had been endured in the first decade of Paul’s apostolate.
  2. 2 Corinthians 11:24 Forty lashes minus one: see Deut 25:3; thirty-nine, in order not to risk going beyond the forty allowed by the Law.