OET interlinear 2 COR 11:1

11:1a

I hope you will bear with a little of my foolishness: Paul told the believers that they should only boast in what the Lord does (10:17–18). In 10:12 he referred to people who commended themselves, and in 10:18 he implied that it was not good for people to do that.

But here he asked them to allow him to commend himself. Doing that was foolish. He did so because the false teachers had been foolishly and boastfully commending themselves. The believers had been listening to the foolish boasting of the false teachers. He wanted to commend himself a little to show the believers that he had better credentials than the false teachers. In some languages it is more natural to:

• Introduce this change in topic with some implied information. For example:

  Those false teachers act foolishly yet you listen to them, so I hope you will bear with a little of my foolishness

  You accept others who commend themselves, so I hope you will put up with a little of my foolishness

• Explain this change in topic in a footnote. For example:

  Here Paul asked the believers to allow him to commend himself a little. He did so because the false teachers had been foolishly commending themselves with boasts about themselves. Some believers had accepted these boasts as reasons to follow the false teachers. Paul wanted to boast a little to show the believers that they should accept him instead.

I hope: The Greek word that the BSB translates as I hope refers to a desire for something to happen. The Greek word usually indicates that the person does not expect it to happen. But Paul was probably speaking ironically here and was hoping that the believers would do as he desired. Other ways to translate this clause are:

I wish (GNT)

I should like (REB)

Please (CEV)

you will bear with: This phrase refers to tolerating something. Paul wanted the believers to allow him to be a little foolish. Other ways to translate this phrase are:

you will put up with (NIV)

you will tolerate/permit/allow

a little of my foolishness: The word little refers here to Paul being foolish for a short time.

foolishness: The Greek word that the BSB translates as foolishness often refers to doing things that make no sense for a good moral person to do. It does not refer here to being intellectually stupid. Paul will praise himself later in his letter. Praising oneself is foolish if the purpose is to make oneself look better than others. But he boasted in this letter to show the believers in Corinth that he could have boasted earlier but had stopped himself from doing so. This was because he had wanted them to believe the gospel because of its truth rather than because of Paul’s credentials.

Here some languages may need to express the idea of foolishness in different ways. For example:

silly boasting

foolishly praising myself

11:1b

but: The Greek words here are literally “but even.” The second word emphasizes the clause that follows. For example:

but indeed (NASB)

you are already doing that: The Greek words are literally “you^(plur) tolerate me” or “tolerate me.” The word “tolerate” is the same word as in 11:1a that the BSB translates as “bear with.”

The Greek clause here can either be a statement or a command. There are two ways to interpret this clause:

1. It is a command (or request) to tolerate Paul’s foolishness. For example:

   Do bear with me! (RSV) (RSV, GNT, NABRE, NLT, CEV, REB, ESV, KJV)

2. It is a statement that the believers were already tolerating Paul’s foolishness. For example:

   you are bearing with me (NASB) (BSB, NIV, NJB, NASB, GW, NET, NCV)

It is recommended that you follow interpretation (1).Harris (p. 730) translates the Greek text as “Yes, do put up with me!” He says it is “an unambiguous request…an imperative” (p. 733). Thrall translates it as “Now do tolerate me” (p. 659). She believes that the context suggests the imperative. Martin translates it as “Yes, please put up with me!” (p. 327). Other ways to translate this clause following interpretation (1) are:

Please try and tolerate me

Please do! (GNT)