2 Corinthians 10

₁I know you think that when I am with you, I am friendly and I am afraid to speak strong and angry words to you. But when I am away from you, I am angry and I say very strong words to you. Because Christ is good and friendly, I ask you, ₂no, I beg you, when I come to you again, not to do bad things that will make me have to say angry words to you. I will be angry with people who say that we think and live like people of this world. ₃Yes, we live on earth, but when we fight against the devil, we don't do it like people of this world. ₄We fight him with weapons, but they are not weapons of this world. The weapons we use against him have a lot of power because they are God's weapons. We can break down the strong walls of the enemy with God's weapons. We break down his clever words. ₅With these weapons we break down every proud argument that stops people from knowing God. We help people to control everything that they think so that they can obey Christ. ₆And when you obey Christ in everything you do, then we will punish anyone who does not want to obey Christ.

₇You look only at the outside of things. You don't see the whole picture and all the other things. If any of you is sure that he belongs to Christ, then he must remember that we also belong to Christ, as he does. ₈The Lord told us to help you believe strongly. He did not tell us to break down your faith. Maybe you think that I am boasting too much about what the Lord told us to do. But that is the truth. He told us to make your faith stronger and I am not ashamed of it. ₉Do not think that I want you to be afraid when you read my letters. ₁₀Maybe there are people who say: ‘When Paul writes to us, he is angry and he uses strong words, but when he is here with us, he is not angry and he does not talk like an apostle should talk.’

₁₁People who talk like that must know that if we are not with you, we will write in our letters what we are going to do, and we will do it when we come to you, and we will punish some people.

₁₂We will never think that we are as good as some people in your congregation, who want us to believe them. These people just look at themselves and then they think they are good. That is why they don't understand anything. ₁₃But we will not boast about something that we may not boast about. We will boast only about things that God told us to do and that is to work among you in Corinth. ₁₄I am not boasting when I say that we came to you and we preached the Good_News of Christ. We did all of these things.

₁₅We do not boast about work that other people did. We hope and know that your faith will become stronger and that we will have to work more and more in Corinth, the town where God told us to work. ₁₆We also want to preach the Good_News in other places that are further than Corinth. But we do not want to boast about the good work that other people have already done there.

₁₈The Lord does not accept people who say good things about themselves. He tells us who we must believe and He accepts only those people.