2 Corinthians 11:23

Oh how great is your goodness, which you have laid up for those who fear you, which you have worked for those who take refuge in you, before the sons of men!

For whoever will be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man also will be ashamed of him, when he comes in his Father’s glory, with the holy angels.”

Yes, for your sake we are killed all day long. We are regarded as sheep for the slaughter.

not that we are sufficient of ourselves, to account anything as from ourselves; but our sufficiency is from God,

He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Most gladly therefore I will rather glory in my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may rest on me.

But you be sober in all things, suffer hardship, do the work of an evangelist, and fulfill your ministry.

Remember those who are in bonds, as bound with them, and those who are ill-treated, since you are also in the body.

“Behold, the days come,” says Yahweh, “that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah:

“Blessed are you when people reproach you, persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely, for my sake.

It is the spirit who gives life. The flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and are life.

But when I found that he had committed nothing worthy of death, and as he himself appealed to the emperor I determined to send him,

for he who worked through Peter in the apostleship with the circumcised also worked through me with the Gentiles—

For it is God who works in you both to will and to work, for his good pleasure.

You therefore must endure hardship as a good soldier of Christ Jesus.

Give diligence to present yourself approved by God, a workman who doesn’t need to be ashamed, properly handling the Word of Truth.

Everyone therefore who confesses me before men, I will also confess him before my Father who is in heaven.

Then Paul answered, “What are you doing, weeping and breaking my heart? For I am ready not only to be bound, but also to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.”

For I am not ashamed of the Good News of Christ, because it is the power of God for salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first, and also for the Greek.

For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus made me free from the law of sin and of death.

Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I suffered shipwreck. I have been a night and a day in the deep.

that no one would be moved by these afflictions. For you know that we are appointed to this task.

persecutions, and sufferings: those things that happened to me at Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra. I endured those persecutions. The Lord delivered me out of them all.

For I am already being offered, and the time of my departure has come.

They overcame him because of the Lamb’s blood, and because of the word of their testimony. They didn’t love their life, even to death.

Yah has punished me severely, but he has not given me over to death.

Now there was a certain man in Caesarea, Cornelius by name, a centurion of what was called the Italian Regiment,

But when the Jews saw the multitudes, they were filled with jealousy, and contradicted the things which were spoken by Paul, and blasphemed.

But when two years were fulfilled, Felix was succeeded by Porcius Festus, and desiring to gain favor with the Jews, Felix left Paul in bonds.

Then Festus, when he had conferred with the council, answered, “You have appealed to Caesar. To Caesar you shall go.”

But now we have been discharged from the law, having died to that in which we were held; so that we serve in newness of the spirit, and not in oldness of the letter.

For I say through the grace that was given me, to every man who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think reasonably, as God has apportioned to each person a measure of faith.

But by the grace of God I am what I am. His grace which was given to me was not futile, but I worked more than all of them; yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.

We are therefore ambassadors on behalf of Christ, as though God were entreating by us: we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.

I have become foolish in boasting. You compelled me, for I ought to have been commended by you, for I am in no way inferior to the very best apostles, though I am nothing.

I will most gladly spend and be spent for your souls. If I love you more abundantly, am I loved the less?

Not that I speak because of lack, for I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content in it.

For this cause I also suffer these things. Yet I am not ashamed, for I know him whom I have believed, and I am persuaded that he is able to guard that which I have committed to him against that day.

For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you.

Likewise, he took the cup after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.

For I will show him how many things he must suffer for my name’s sake.”

When some of both the Gentiles and the Jews, with their rulers, made a violent attempt to mistreat and stone them,

He found a certain Jew named Aquila, a man of Pontus by race, who had recently come from Italy, with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had commanded all the Jews to depart from Rome. He came to them,

Having found disciples, we stayed there seven days. These said to Paul through the Spirit that he should not go up to Jerusalem.

So he took him, and brought him to the commanding officer, and said, “Paul, the prisoner, summoned me and asked me to bring this young man to you. He has something to tell you.”

For this cause therefore I asked to see you and to speak with you. For because of the hope of Israel I am bound with this chain.”

I planted. Apollos watered. But God gave the increase.

For who makes you different? And what do you have that you didn’t receive? But if you did receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?

For, I think that God has displayed us, the apostles, last of all, like men sentenced to death. For we are made a spectacle to the world, both to angels and men.

In the same way he also took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink, in memory of me.”

by which also you are saved, if you hold firmly the word which I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.

who also made us sufficient as servants of a new covenant, not of the letter, but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

Working together, we entreat also that you do not receive the grace of God in vain,

It is even right for me to think this way on behalf of all of you, because I have you in my heart, because both in my bonds and in the defense and confirmation of the Good News, you all are partakers with me of grace.

Jeremiah commanded Baruch, saying, “I am restricted. I can’t go into Yahweh’s house.

Who then is Apollos, and who is Paul, but servants through whom you believed, and each as the Lord gave to him?

as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and behold, we live; as punished, and not killed;

in labor and travail, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, and in cold and nakedness.

and say, ‘The king says, “Put this fellow in the prison, and feed him with bread of affliction and with water of affliction, until I return in peace.” ’ ”

My soul is continually in my hand, yet I won’t forget your law.

But you will be called Yahweh’s priests. Men will call you the servants of our God. You will eat the wealth of the nations. You will boast in their glory.

Put on sackcloth and mourn, you priests! Wail, you ministers of the altar. Come, lie all night in sackcloth, you ministers of my God, for the meal offering and the drink offering are withheld from your God’s house.

But he who is greatest among you will be your servant.

They were exceedingly astonished, saying to him, “Then who can be saved?”

and laid hands on the apostles, then put them in public custody.

But some Jews from Antioch and Iconium came there, and having persuaded the multitudes, they stoned Paul, and dragged him out of the city, supposing that he was dead.

except that the Holy Spirit testifies in every city, saying that bonds and afflictions wait for me.

Coming to us and taking Paul’s belt, he bound his own feet and hands, and said, “The Holy Spirit says: ‘So the Jews at Jerusalem will bind the man who owns this belt, and will deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles.’ ”

As he stayed there many days, Festus laid Paul’s case before the king, saying, “There is a certain man left a prisoner by Felix;

When it was determined that we should sail for Italy, they delivered Paul and certain other prisoners to a centurion named Julius, of the Augustan band.

But when Paul had gathered a bundle of sticks and laid them on the fire, a viper came out because of the heat, and fastened on his hand.

When we entered into Rome, the centurion delivered the prisoners to the captain of the guard, but Paul was allowed to stay by himself with the soldier who guarded him.

Paul stayed two whole years in his own rented house and received all who were coming to him,

Even as it is written, “For your sake we are killed all day long. We were accounted as sheep for the slaughter.”

that I should be a servant of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles, serving as a priest of the Good News of God, that the offering up of the Gentiles might be made acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit.

Greet Andronicus and Junia, my relatives and my fellow prisoners, who are notable among the apostles, who were also in Christ before me.

So let a man think of us as Christ’s servants, and stewards of God’s mysteries.

I affirm, by the boasting in you which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily.

For we who live are always delivered to death for Jesus’ sake, that the life also of Jesus may be revealed in our mortal flesh.

but in everything commending ourselves, as servants of God, in great endurance, in afflictions, in hardships, in distresses,

Do you look at things only as they appear in front of your face? If anyone trusts in himself that he is Christ’s, let him consider this again with himself, that even as he is Christ’s, so we also are Christ’s.

For I reckon that I am not at all behind the very best apostles.

It is no great thing therefore if his servants also masquerade as servants of righteousness, whose end will be according to their works.

For this cause I, Paul, am the prisoner of Christ Jesus on behalf of you Gentiles,

I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beg you to walk worthily of the calling with which you were called,

for which I am an ambassador in chains; that in it I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak.

so that it became evident to the whole palace guard, and to all the rest, that my bonds are in Christ,

Yes, and if I am poured out on the sacrifice and service of your faith, I rejoice, and rejoice with you all.

even as you learned of Epaphras our beloved fellow servant, who is a faithful servant of Christ on your behalf,

if it is so that you continue in the faith, grounded and steadfast, and not moved away from the hope of the Good News which you heard, which is being proclaimed in all creation under heaven, of which I, Paul, was made a servant.

Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and fill up on my part that which is lacking of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body’s sake, which is the assembly,

for which I also labor, striving according to his working, which works in me mightily.

and sent Timothy, our brother and God’s servant in the Good News of Christ, to establish you, and to comfort you concerning your faith,

If you instruct the brothers of these things, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, nourished in the words of the faith, and of the good doctrine which you have followed.

Therefore don’t be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner; but endure hardship for the Good News according to the power of God,

May the Lord grant mercy to the house of Onesiphorus, for he often refreshed me, and was not ashamed of my chain,

in which I suffer hardship to the point of chains as a criminal. But God’s word isn’t chained.

yet for love’s sake I rather beg, being such a one as Paul, the aged, but also a prisoner of Jesus Christ.

For you both had compassion on me in my chains, and joyfully accepted the plundering of your possessions, knowing that you have for yourselves a better possession and an enduring one in the heavens.

You have perseverance and have endured for my name’s sake, and have not grown weary.

But we beg you, brothers, to know those who labor among you, and are over you in the Lord, and admonish you,