Paul’s Suffering and Service

(Colossians 1:24–29)

vvv I repeat: {Let} no one take me for a fool. But if [you do], [then] receive me as a fool, so that I too may boast a little. 17 In this confident boasting [of mine], vvv I am not speaking as [the] Lord {would}, but as a fool. 18 Since many are boasting according to the flesh, I too will boast. 19 For you gladly put up with fools, since you are so wise. 20 In fact, you even put up with anyone who enslaves you [or] exploits [you] [or] takes advantage [of you] [or] exalts himself [or] strikes you in the face. 21 To [my] shame I concede that we were too weak [for that]!

Speaking vvv as a fool, however, I can [match] what anyone else dares [to boast about]. 22 Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they descendants of Abraham? So am I. 23 Are they servants of Christ?( I am speaking as if I were out of my mind.) I am so much more: in harder labor, in worse beatings, in more imprisonments,[fn] in frequent danger of death. 24 Five times I received from [the] Jews [the] forty [lashes] minus one. 25 Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked. I spent a night and a day in the open [sea].

26 

In my frequent journeys [I have been] in danger from rivers [and] from bandits, in danger from [my] countrymen [and] from [the] Gentiles, in danger in [the] city [and] in [the] country, in danger on [the] sea [and] among false brothers, 27 in labor and toil [and] often vvv without sleep, in hunger and thirst [and] often vvv without food, in cold and exposure.

28 

Apart from these external [trials], I [face] vvv vvv daily the pressure [of my] concern for all the churches. 29 Who is weak, and vvv I am not weak? Who is led into sin, and I {do} not burn with grief?

30 

If I must boast, I will boast [of] the things [that show] my weakness. 31 The God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ,[fn] who is vvv vvv forever worthy of praise,[fn] knows that vvv I am not lying. 32 In Damascus, the governor under King Aretas secured the city of the Damascenes wishing[fn] to arrest me. 33 But I was lowered in a basket through a window in the wall and escaped his grasp. 12